


Worth Living For

by fogisbeautiful



Series: Ripley's Believe It Or Not [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Incredible Hulk (2008), The Incredible Hulk - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Childhood Trauma, Depression, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Marvel Universe, Pre-Avengers (2012), Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Suicide Attempt, World Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-10
Updated: 2013-10-18
Packaged: 2017-12-26 04:35:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 41,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/961625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fogisbeautiful/pseuds/fogisbeautiful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alice Ripley is running, from a dark past and her own guilt.  Until Dr. Bruce Banner, a quiet man at his lowest point, gives her a glimpse of the extraordinary and her world shifts... BruceBanner/OC, set before the events of the Avengers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  ****  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A Brief Note Concerning Kolkata:** It has come to my attention since originally writing and publishing this story, that there is a small controversy regarding the name of the city in which the majority of the action is set. I would like to take this moment to provide a little bit of a history lesson and hopefully to clear up any future confusion regarding this issue. In 2001, the major city of Calcutta, India was renamed to Kolkata, to better match the native spelling of the place, rather than the romanized spelling of the British Empire. Since the Avengers is set in 2012 (eleven years after this official change) I felt it was more respectful to the country, the city, and its inhabitants to use the more accurate spelling, rather than the spelling that might be more familiar to those not up to date with the changes. You can find all this information through a simple Google search, I just wanted it to be clear that I did not make this decision lightly or out of ignorance. It was a deliberate choice on my part. Thank you all for understanding :)

 

Kolkata was not at all what Alice had expected.

She wasn't really sure what she had expected, but she had felt it when she stepped off the plane, though the busy international terminal hadn't looked all that different from the other terminals she'd been in over the years; London, Paris, Sydney, Venice, just to name a few. Even now, staring through the window of the convenience shop, waiting for business, she could feel the mysticism, as if there were a power in the air and it was only waiting for her to find it and follow it. She twisted her fingers absently through the silver chain around her neck, the two plain gold wedding bands that hung from it clinking together rhythmically.

The bell above the door tinkled and she dropped the chain, her sharp, dark eyes flitting to the open door. She knew this man, one of the everyday regulars. He didn't even look at her as he grabbed a plastic basket and made his way down the aisles. It was Tuesday, shopping day.

Alice ran her slender fingers through her short brown hair making it stand up at odd angles. For all of the mystery and intrigue that she felt in the air, Kolkata had been decidedly less exciting than she'd expected. The same customers, the same street, the same routine, day after day, she felt as if she was always waiting for something to happen, and the anxiety sucked the energy out of her. She put her chin in her hand, leaned on the counter, and went back to staring out the window, but even the busy street outside offered no relief from the monotony. The crowd was made up of the same streaks of muddied browns, tans, and creams, mixed with the occasional bright spots of color from the more expensive saris. The shops and street vendors boasted all sorts of colorful wares, toys, food, clothes, but really it all blurred together in the end. They were located in one of the poorer parts of the city, close to the slums, and the people here made do with what they had, which wasn't much.

She saw the man approaching her counter out of the corner of her eye and straightened. Yes, she remembered him, medium frame, curly brown hair, glasses framing his dark eyes. He was quiet, barely speaking a word in the whole month she had worked there. He'd said enough for Alice to know that he was American, but on finding out that she was also American, he hadn't seemed interested in continuing any kind of conversation. She didn't even know his name. He was never rude, but he wasn't exactly what she would call friendly.

"Hey there," she said, putting on her customer-service face.

What might barely pass for a nervous smile fluttered over his lips, but he didn't say anything as he put his basket on the counter. Alice started to ring him up and put everything into crisp paper bags. Neither of them spoke. This routine was as easy as breathing to Alice now. As she rang up the last of his groceries, he also put a deli turkey sandwich and a Coke on the counter. She rang those up too and read him his total, which he paid without saying a word. As she handed him his change, she was treated to one of his rare phrases.

"Thank you," he murmured as he picked up his bags.

Those two words, as with every time she heard his soft voice, softened her slightly harsh assessment of him. She smiled, this time a bit more genuinely.

"Have a good night," she said.

That ghost of a smile passed over his face again, almost too quickly to see, and then he was gone. She watched him through the window, hurrying against the flow of foot traffic on the sidewalk, head down as if he wished he could hide in plain sight from the whole world. Alice knew how that felt. The only difference was she was succeeding.

Her shift was up at two o'clock and her relief came in promptly at five minutes 'til. The shop owner, Halim Takeri, was a young man, only older than her by a year at twenty-eight, but his hair was starting to gray at the temples and underneath his bright smile was a tiredness that never really went away.

"How are Ambi and Mika?" Alice asked, as Halim came around the counter, "Feeling any better?"

Rashmika, Halim's seven year old daughter, hadn't been feeling well for a week or so, and Ambika, Halim's wife, had been staying home to care for her. The look on Halim's face worried her.

"No Ms. Ripley," he said, in his thick accent, "Mika, she still has fever. She has strange dreams, she cries out. We…" His voice broke off and he gathered himself, "We are worried."

Alice felt a painful knot in her stomach. She had met Mika many times, had chased her on the sidewalk just outside this shop. She was a sweet little girl, mild-mannered and kind like her father and exotically beautiful like her mother, even covered in layers of dirt from playing in the street. And she was so small.

She put a hand on Halim's shoulder.

"I'm sure she'll be alright."

Halim nodded and went back to counting the money in the drawer. Alice knew her words sounded hollow, even in her own ears. The Takeris couldn't afford to take Mika to a doctor. They could barely afford to get by. They were paying Alice less than the going rate, and under the table, but she needed the work and she liked the Takeris, so she ignored it. She wished there was something more she could do, but she had very little money herself, and she wasn't a doctor. That didn't stop Halim's words from echoing over and over in her head.

" _We are worried…"_

The next morning, Alice opened the shop in a haze. Her sleep had been restless, full of nightmares, Mika's pale face mixed with screams and darkness that didn't make sense, but were all too familiar to her. As she mechanically stacked shelves and checked inventory, she kept seeing Halim's haggard face.

" _We are worried…"_

She kept telling herself Mika would be fine, she would be better today. But worry in her gut still hung over her like a dark cloud. Then the call came.

The old rotary telephone on the wall had never rung, not in the whole time Alice had worked at the store. It hung next to the cash register, cream plastic under a layer of dust from disuse. When it jangled next to her ear at a quarter to two, Alice felt like she might jump out of her skin. She stared at the phone, confused. For a moment she forgot how to deal with it. On the second ring, she picked up the receiver.

"He… Hello?"

"Ms. Ripley?"

The soft voice belonged to Ambika Takeri. Though it trembled it still held a musical quality to it.

"Ambi? What is it? What's wrong?"

She heard what might have been a suppressed sob on the other end. Alice felt the knot in her stomach clench painfully.

"Alice… Alice I'm so sorry, but Halim… Halim will not be in today. He said you can close the shop early when your shift is… is over."

Alice could hear the tears in Ambi's voice and she fought to keep her voice calm.

"Ambi? Is everything okay?"

Another stifled sob.

"I… We do not know… Mika… She is very sick."

"Is there anything I can do? Do you need anything?" Panic was creeping into her voice.

"No… No, we… Alice, I am sorry, I must go."

"Ambi, wait…"

But the line was already dead. Alice held the silent receiver to her ear for a good ten seconds, trying to process what she'd heard. Mika wasn't getting better. She was getting worse.

She had an immediate urge to leave the store, to run as fast as she could to the Takeris' house, to do something. She was just a little girl, just a baby, somebody should do something! But her rational mind told her there was nothing she could do. She didn't know anything about sickness, she wasn't a doctor. Hot tears of frustration spilled onto her cheeks and she swiped them away as she slammed the phone back onto the wall and turned.

A man was standing at the counter. Alice hadn't even heard him come in and his sudden appearance frightened her. It was the quiet one, the American with the glasses, holding a wrapped turkey sandwich and a Coke. He looked like he was trying not to notice that she was crying. She sniffed and rubbed at her tear streaked face quickly, trying to compose herself.

"Sorry, I didn't hear you come in," she said, putting on her customer facade as easily as slipping on a pair of sneakers.

He didn't say anything as she rang him up. He didn't even look at her. He handed her the money for his lunch, then turned away, not even waiting for a bag. He was almost to the door, when he paused. He took another hesitant step, then he sighed, sounding almost frustrated. He turned back and finally looked at her.

"Are you… Are you okay?"

The question startled Alice so much that for a moment she didn't say anything. Then words began to pour out of her in a rush.

"Their daughter, the shop owners' daughter is sick, they don't know what's wrong, but I think she might be dying and I don't know what to do, they can't afford a doctor and I don't know how to help them, but she's just a little girl and I'm so scared that she's going to die…"

Tears had started to slip down her cheeks again she brushed them away furiously.

"And all I can do is sit here and cry, while she's out there, dying!" she said, frustration and guilt seeping into the words.

The man stood very still while she spoke, just watching her with deep brown eyes. When she finally paused to catch her breath, he sighed again, pinching the bridge of his nose like he had a headache.

"Where is she?"

Alice balked at the sharp question.

"Who?"

"The little girl," he said, "Where is she? Do you know where they live, can you take me there?"

Alice didn't answer right away. The man rolled his eyes and gestured to his clothes, a pair of dirty jeans with a rip in the knee and a gray t-shirt that looked like it had seen better days.

"Okay, I know I don't look it, but I'm actually kind of a doctor. I might be able to help your little friend if I can see her."

A doctor. He was a doctor. Alice gave him a long look. He was right, he didn't look like a doctor. But he was offering to help Mika, and that was more than she could have hoped for. She started scrambling for the key to the cash register.

"I… hold on, I just… I just have to lock up."

She was stuttering, terrified that if she took too long the man might change his mind. He didn't really look too pleased with the situation to begin with. She finally managed to lock the drawer, then grabbed her bag and slung it over her shoulder, rushing past the doctor almost at a run, the key to the door in her hand.

"Come on," she said breathlessly, "It's just a few blocks away."

She locked up the shop behind them, and they started weaving their way through the lunchtime crowds. Alice was still almost running, dodging in and out of the foot traffic easily. She kept checking behind her to make sure the doctor was still following, but he seemed to have no trouble keeping up. They raced down the busy shop filled street, then turned sharply and after only a few blocks they were in a small residential neighborhood. It wasn't much better than a slum really, but it was a bit cleaner and the houses, such as they were, were all intact. She led the doctor to a small tidy home in the middle of the street and pounded on the door, hard and loud, desperation in ever strike of her fist.

"Halim!" she called, "Halim, it's me, open the door!"

She heard scrambling inside, then the door opened and Halim stood there, looking ragged.

"Ms. Ripley?"

"I've brought help," she said, "For Mika. This is Doctor…"

Alice felt a fleeting moment of panic when she realized she didn't even know the man's name. But he stepped in smoothly to cover her pause.

"Banner," he said, taking Halim's hand, "Bruce Banner."

Halim looked him up and down skeptically, but Dr. Banner barely seemed to notice.

"I hear you have a little girl who's sick. May I see her?"

Halim hesitated, "We… We have no money to pay you, Dr. Banner…"

But the doctor stopped him before he could say any more.

"Let's just take a look at what we have first."

Halim hesitated still, then glanced at Alice. She nodded to him. After all, it couldn't make it much worse, could it? Finally, Halim stepped aside and led Dr. Banner and Alice into the back room of their small home. Mika lay curled up on a mattress in the corner, shivering under a thin blanket. Her long black hair was tangled and sticking to her round face, flushed under her dark skin. Ambi sat beside her daughter, pressing a damp cloth to Mika's forehead. The little girl moaned and muttered something in Hindi that Alice didn't understand. Ambi brushed her long slender fingers against the little girl's cheek and hushed her gently.

Dr. Banner wasted no time. He knelt beside Ambi, touching her shoulder gently and speaking a few soft words of Hindi. Ambi looked alarmed, but a glance at her husband and she stepped back, letting Dr. Banner examine Mika. The parents of the little girl stood with their arms around each other, watching the doctor work with fear and hope mixed in their eyes. Alice felt like she couldn't stop fidgeting. She wanted to pace, but that seemed like the worst thing to do. So she stood to one side, twisting the silver chain around her neck, the two gold rings clinking together over and over and over again.

Suddenly she felt a soft touch on her elbow. It was Ambi, looking up at Alice with those big doe eyes.

"Whatever happens, Alice, I want you to know we are so grateful."

Alice nodded, but she didn't trust herself to reply. If she had brought this man here and the little girl still died, she knew she would never forgive herself. She could add it to the list of things she would never forgive herself for.

After what felt like an eternity, Dr. Banner stood up and pulled a grimy little notebook and a stub of pencil out of his pocket.

"I'm going to need to run to the pharmacy and get a few things…"

"I'll go," Alice interrupted, dropping the chain she was worrying.

Dr. Banner glanced up at her over his glasses, but Alice held her ground.

"I can't just stand here when I could be doing something useful. I'll go."

He didn't answer, but he turned his eyes back to his notebook and started scribbling furiously. Ambi took Alice's hand in hers and gave it a squeeze.

Dr. Banner ripped the page out of his notebook and handed it to Alice.

"Give that to the pharmacist, they should be able to find what you need."

Alice nodded, folded up the paper and slipped it in her bag. Dr. Banner was already scribbling on another page.

"Now, I'm writing down some instructions…"

"Is our daughter going to be alright?" Ambi asked, her voice trembling.

The doctor stopped scribbling and looked up at Ambi. His dark eyes were kind and his voice was gentle when he spoke.

"Your little girl is very sick," he said, "But I'm going to do what I can to get her better."

Ambi smiled, though her eyes had welled up with tears. The doctor returned her smile briefly. Then as if he'd just realized what he'd done, he dropped his eyes and started furiously scratching in his notebook again.

"You better get going."

He never looked up, but Alice knew he was talking to her.

She slipped out of the room and rushed out the door, hitting the street at a hard run. She sprinted all the way to the pharmacy, her heart pounding the way it had in Spain with a herd of stampeding bulls on her heels. She paced and fidgeted as the old man behind the counter shuffled back and forth, collecting everything on her list. After paying a total that Alice knew the Takeris could never afford, she was off again, racing back to the house and bursting through the door, holding the bag up like a prize.

"I got it! What do we do now?"

Panting, Alice looked for the doctor, but the Takeris were alone. Dr. Banner was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

It had been a week since Dr. Bruce Banner had saved Mika's life, and no one had seen him since. Mika had woken up the morning after the Takeris had started treatment and had been growing stronger every day. She was going to be fine. But the doctor was gone. He hadn't been back to the house, or even come into the shop since the incident, but Alice couldn't stop looking for him. As she sat in the shop, chin in her hand, her eyes scanned the street outside, trying to catch a glimpse of him. Everywhere she went she was always looking, looking for the doctor that had saved a little girl and then vanished.

At first she tried to rationalize it. She told herself she was looking for the Takeris' sake. They were so grateful to the doctor that had saved their only child. They wanted to do something, anything to repay the debt. Now that a week had passed, she knew that wasn't entirely true, but she still used the rationale, because it was all the explanation she had.

The little bell above the shop door tinkled and Ambika Takeri glided into the shop. She looked much more like her old self now. The dark, tired circles under her eyes were fading and she looked radiant in her brightly colored sari and headscarf. Alice was so happy to see her looking well rested.

"Good afternoon, Alice," Ambi said, sweeping behind the counter and beginning the drawer count.

"Good afternoon, Ambi," Alice replied, "How is Mika?"

"Much better, but still tired, she sleeps so much." She glanced up from counting for a moment, "He still does not come?"

Alice looked out the window, scanning the crowd one more time out of habit.

"Nope, no sign of him."

She tried to sound nonchalant, but she wasn't sure if she succeeded. Ambi just nodded and went back to the count. Her long slender fingers were quick and precise, and in what felt like a blink, Alice was slinging her bag over her shoulder and heading out into the bright afternoon, the summer sun warm on her tanned shoulders under her dingy green tank.

No matter where she went, Alice had discovered that navigating city streets was essentially the same. Keep your head down, and try to stay out of everybody's way. But lately, Alice had been keeping her head up and her eyes peeled, flicking into the faces of strangers, looking for anything that might give her a clue to the doctor's whereabouts. What was a scruffy American doctor doing in the slums of Kolkata anyway? The only American doctors she'd seen were trim and sleek, and working with Greenpeace. Dr. Banner hadn't looked like he had ever worked for Greenpeace. He'd looked like a laborer, like a common man. Only he wasn't, and not just because of his profession. Alice couldn't place it, but there was something about him, in the way he spoke and the look in his eyes…

Alice bought a kebob of meat and veggies from a street vendor, then, just out of curiosity, she asked, "English?"

The small dirty man looked up and gave her a gap-toothed grin.

"Yes! Yes, English, American!"

She tried not to roll her eyes. Sometimes revealing that you were American to anyone felt like the the equivalent of announcing to a buzzard that you were dying. She had just labeled herself a tourist. The truth of that label was irrelevant.

"Have you seen a man go by here, about so high," She measured a few inches above her own head, "Curly brown hair, glasses, American?"

She didn't know how much of the description the man understood other than 'American', but he seemed to ponder the question for a moment. To help him along, Alice bought another of his skewers. They really were pretty good and she was hungry.

"American man used to go by here," he said finally, "Sometimes he stop, buy, sometimes not," He circled his eyes with his fingers, "Eye glass."

Alice felt her heart jump in her chest.

"Yes!" she said, "Yes, have you seen him?"

The man shook his head and tended to a few skewers he had just added to the grill, "No, not for many days."

Alice felt a little of her excitement sputter out, but she kept on.

"When you saw him, where did he go? Did you see where he went?"

The man considered her for a moment and Alice realized it was entirely possible that she sounded a little bit crazy. She tried to wipe all traces of stalker-like excitement from her face. She wasn't a crazy stalker… Was she?

The man shrugged, apparently deciding it didn't matter much to him either way.

"He would go that way," He pointed down a narrow side street, "Get on a bus. To work, I think, maybe to the river?"

"The river?"

The Hooghy River was a 45 minute trip from here. It seemed like an awful long way.

"Sure, the river. Easy to get work there."

Alice remembered the doctor's dirty clothes and considered. She supposed it was possible that he could work on the river front, maybe for one of the loading companies. She thanked the vendor and bought one more skewer from him for his trouble, giving it to a little boy as soon as she was out of sight. It was then that she realized what she'd done. She had essentially bribed a stranger for information about a man's whereabouts. She _was_ a stalker! This was crazy! She couldn't go wandering all over God's green earth looking for a man she barely knew, and who clearly did not want to see her again.

She turned on her heel, marched straight back the way she had come, and just managed to catch the bus headed back to the hostel where she was staying. The sun was setting behind the buildings of the city, casting long shadows as she stared out the window. This was insane. _she_ was insane. What had she been thinking?

She got off the bus and hurried inside the rundown building. The hostel was really just a step or two above the slums themselves, but it was cheap, and it had a bed and running water. After almost ten years of traveling, Alice had discovered that was really all she needed.

She flopped on the rickety bunk that she called home and stared determinedly at the bottom of the bunk above her. She would not go to the river. She would _not_ go to the river. Besides, this late in the evening he wouldn't be there anyway. He would be making his way to… well she didn't know where. She didn't know where he was.

It was early still, so the dorm was quiet. Normally the quiet would have been comforting, but now she felt edgy, restless. She needed a distraction. She got up and started rifling through her locker. No one took any notice of her. Most of the people who stayed in these places were tourists or college kids on sabbatical, not exactly her kind of crowd. Over the years, Alice had developed an air about her, a distance that others could sense and didn't try to penetrate.

She pulled out a nice pair of jeans and a top she rarely wore, purple with sequins. She was going out tonight. Maybe she would even have a drink, just one. She didn't like to drink too much when she was alone, but it might take the edge off, get her mind working in a different direction. After all, tomorrow was her day off. She could have just one drink. No matter what she was not going to the river.

But of course, despite her best efforts, as the sun rose over the city the next morning Alice found herself on a bus, heading for the river.

She spent the morning wandering shipping docks, keeping her eyes and ears open for any sign of the doctor. She tried to ask some of the dock workers and street vendors about him, but her Hindi was spotty at best and the workers that knew enough English to understand what she was asking were few and far between. Many men gave her lingering looks that made her skin crawl, and muttered things that she didn't understand and was sure she didn't want to. She didn't let it bother her. She just kept walking, her head high.

By noon, her enthusiasm had waned considerably. The day was hot and muggy this close to the water. No one had heard of any Bruce, Banner or otherwise, and no Americans were working there that matched the description she gave. She was pushing her way through the lunch crowd, trying to breathe the heavy air, when she caught a flash of curly brown hair out of the corner of her eye. She jerked upright, her eyes alert, but it was gone. Maybe it had never been there to begin with. Maybe the heat was playing tricks on her mind. It didn't matter. The pounding of her heart and the adrenaline in her veins spurred her on.

She stopped at a store for a bottle of water and a granola bar, and then moved on to the next dock. Still no luck, and her enthusiasm waned once more. The next gate, however, made her pause. Even with her limited knowledge of the shipping industry, she could tell that this company was less than reputable. Once you got a taste for it, you could almost always tell the shady businesses, the ones that paid under the table and didn't ask pesky questions about work visas. They had a feeling about them, an atmosphere that no amount of paint or neon lighting could hide. Not that this company appeared to be taking the route of subtlety. The gate was padlocked and the rusted sign on the chain link boldly proclaimed, in both Hindi and English, "Property of ABC Shipping and Transport: No Trespassing."

It took only a moment for Alice to find a spot where the fence didn't quite meet the pole it was supposed attach to. With a quick glance around, she pushed it back and slipped inside.

The dock itself had an unsavory feel to it. Men in dirty clothes and scarred skin shuffled by with their heads down, giving barely a glance to the petite woman wandering through their midst. All of them looked as Dr. Banner had looked, like they had something to hide, something to run from. Alice imagined that if anyone ever bothered to look very closely, she would have a similar look to her.

There was a single ship docked at the yard and there were men working with outdated machinery and bare hands to unload the cargo. Alice was certain that she didn't want to know what was in those boxes. She didn't have time to ponder it very long, because suddenly someone grabbed her arm and yanked her backwards. She felt a jolt of surprise, regained her balance, and whirled to face her attacker.

It was Dr. Banner. And he looked like he was fighting to stay calm.

"What are you doing here?" he hissed.

For a fleeting second, Alice forgot what her excuse was for coming.

"I… I just…"

"You shouldn't be here."

He pushed Alice behind him and glanced around the platform nervously. They were behind a stack of empty crates, tucked away between two warehouses. He turned back to face her, shielding her from the view of anyone who might happen to walk by.

"What are you doing here?" he asked again, visibly calmer now, more in control, "Is it the girl? Is she alright?"

Alice nodded, finally able to get her thoughts back in order.

"Yes, yes Mika's fine, she's much better now, thanks to you. The Takeris are so grateful, they wanted to do something for you, to show their appreciation…"

Dr. Banner waved his hand at her, irritated.

"I don't want anything, okay? Just tell them I don't need anything."

"But it would mean a lot…"

"Look," His voice was low now, darker, and his eyes were narrow. His hands were on her shoulders, the grip tight, almost painful, "I don't need anything, I don't want anything. If they want to thank me, they can just forget that they ever saw me. You too, you understand? Forget you ever saw me."

Alice stuttered, "But I…"

"It's not safe, okay? It's not safe around me!"

He shoved her away hard, making her stumble down the alley, and then shoved a finger toward her.

"Now, get out! I don't want to see you here again, got it?"

Before she could answer, the doctor turned and disappeared into a crowd of men headed for the front gate. Alice stood for a moment, rubbing her shoulders where he had gripped her.

" _It's not safe around me!"_

His words echoed in her head, but they didn't make sense. He was a doctor. Didn't they have to take some kind of oath, do no harm or something? And despite his insinuations and thinly veiled threats, the soft spoken doctor she'd seen a week ago didn't seem all that threatening.

But… his eyes… Not while he had been threatening her, but when he had first seen her, those first few moments, there had been a struggle, just a hint of something that she couldn't quite place, had never seen before, lurking in his eyes. For that brief moment, Alice might have been able to believe that Dr. Bruce Banner was dangerous. She didn't know how or why, but it took only a few seconds for her to realize she was going to find out. She needed to know.

She sprinted down the alley and slipped through the fence the same way she'd come in. The street outside was crowded with men getting off work and she thought for a moment that she might have missed him already. She spun in a circle on the sidewalk, searching the sea of strangers, for any trace…

There. A mop of brown hair and she was pushing through the crowd, anxious to keep him in sight. He kept his head down, moving quickly and fluidly through the throng of people all jostling together on the sidewalks, but Alice was small and agile enough to keep pace with him to the bus station. A bus pulled up and Dr. Banner got on it.

Alice slipped in the back door behind a group of men who all leered at her and made a few rude noises. Alice ignored them, her eyes scanning the crowded bus. He was there, standing in the aisle with his back to her, his head still down, like he was trying not to be seen. Hiding in plain sight. Alice smiled. She'd playing that game most of her life. He wasn't hiding from her. He was hiding from everyone and that was considerably harder.

The bus lurched forward and Alice grabbed a pole to keep her footing. One of the men she was standing near made another rude comment, something about the pole. She wanted to glare, or preferably kick him in the groin, but that would draw everyone's attention and she might lose sight of the doctor. She continued to ignore them.

The bus trundled along for a while, stopping frequently to drop off and pick up passengers. Every time the bus stopped Alice felt her heart race. Every time the passengers shifted and she lost sight of the doctor's curly head, even for an instant, her pulse jumped in her throat. But then everything settled and he was there, right where she'd left him. The men that had been working as her cover got off and were replaced by a mixed group of men and women that left her to herself. She was relieved. She really didn't have time to deal with that nonsense right now.

After what felt like an eternity (but was really about an hour), the bus stopped and Dr. Banner slipped out the doors. Alice rushed to follow, nearly tripping over herself to get out. They were on the very eastern edge of the city, not too terribly far from the Takeri's shop. It was an area that she could just barely recognize from her own bus trips through the city. They were just outside the slums.

The light was dim now. The sun had set during the bus trip and only a few lamp posts lit the street. Doctor Banner was already well ahead of her, taking long purposeful strides down the sidewalk, headed into the slums. Alice followed, but didn't hurry to catch him. There weren't very many people walking on the street, it was much easier to keep sight of him, and she didn't want him to turn around and immediately recognize her. She hoped the dim light would help to prevent that.

She followed him into the slums of Kolkata. She knew this area, had gotten lost here a few times, but she had never come with any real purpose. Dr. Banner moved like a man with a destination. Did he live here, in the slums? Why? Alice didn't have the brain capacity to ponder that, keep up with him, and also take in her surroundings. After all, she was going to need to find her way back out of here eventually.

They walked for several blocks. The open shacks all stuffed together, became fewer and more spread out. Alice was surprised when a tree popped up out of the dirt beside her. And another. There were trees growing out here!

The house Dr. Banner finally entered was little more than four walls and roof. There were holes cut into the walls for a door and couple of windows, but except for a few tattered pieces of cloth that might once have been curtains, nothing covered them. It was quiet and secluded. The nearest house was quite a few feet away (and it looked unoccupied), and the shack was surrounded by trees, keeping it well hidden from everything. If Alice hadn't seen Dr. Banner go in, she might have missed it. She wasn't even sure if they were still in the city.

A light flared to life and flickered through the windows and door. Alice quickly swung up into one of the trees as soundlessly as possible. The branches were sturdy and barely shuddered under her weight. She pulled herself up until she could see inside the house through the cover of leaves. There wasn't much to see. It was one room with a dirt floor. A rickety old bed covered with a worn green blanket stood against one wall. Pushed against another wall was a small table and a lit candle. Bruce sat on a three legged stool that looked like it might collapse under him at any moment. It looked like he was writing something.

Alice felt a sudden rush of guilt. She was a stalker. Officially. She had followed this man to his home, after clearly being told that she was not welcome and now she was sitting in a tree, watching him through a window. She was a bona fide stalker. For a minute, it creeped her out.

But then a breeze blew through the tree's branches, cooling the warm night air and her sweaty face. The wind was out of the east and it didn't smell like the city, dirty and tainted. It smelled green and fresh, and just for a single moment, Alice thought of home, the small farm in Oklahoma where she'd grown up, grown up faster than she should have, in one single afternoon. But the smell reminded her of a time, before the horrible afternoon, when she had been really happy there. And she wasn't ready to leave just yet.

So Alice settled back against the tree trunk and prepared to wait.


	3. Chapter 3

And wait she did. Alice had been watching Dr. Bruce Banner come and go for over two weeks now and frankly, it was about as dangerous as watching paint dry. Nothing had happened that first night. After a few hours of writing in some kind of journal, Dr. Banner had gotten up, stretched, dug into a bag for what looked like some sort of energy bar, eaten it, and then blown out the candle and gone to bed. Alice had waited in that tree for over an hour, but that was it. Nothing happened. Finally she'd climbed down and made her way home. She had been able to fall into bed and catch a few hours of sleep before her shift at the store the next morning. She drank a lot of coffee that day.

But she had gone back the next night. And the next. After a week, it was habit. Even when she worked nights at the shop she was able to climb into that tree before the doctor was even done writing in his journal. His routine was as regular as clockwork. Come home, write in journal, dinner, go to bed. The only thing that changed was what he ate, and that barely. Sometimes it was kebobs from a street vendor, sometimes energy bars. Once, he'd come home with a styrofoam box of some sort of rice dish, so spicy Alice's eyes had watered even up in the tree. He had eaten it without so much as a flinch and she felt a great deal of respect for him that night.

But nothing dangerous ever happened. By the two week mark, Alice was starting to wonder if she'd made it all up in her head. Was she missing something? Was it something he was doing at the docks? Despite the shady business dealings she was sure held sway at his place of employment, Alice didn't really think it was dangerous. Besides, he hadn't said his job was dangerous. He'd said _he_ was dangerous. She'd seen it in his eyes, and despite her doubts, deep in her heart she knew what she'd seen.

She was a few days into her third week as "stalker extraordinaire" when something finally changed. At first it was just a little something. She was running late. She'd worked a morning shift at the shop, but it had been a very busy day and Halim had asked her to restock the shelves before she left. It had taken the better part of an hour over her scheduled time to finish up between customers. She wasn't really worried about it. After all, Bruce ran like clockwork. He would be sitting on his stool, writing in his journal when she got there, whether she was late or not. She'd even taken the time to change clothes before she'd hurried out to the slums. The sun had set and it was dark, but she wove her way in and out of the buildings expertly.

She reached the end of the familiar street and stopped. The house was dark. No candlelight flickered through the door and windows. She glanced at her watch. It was later than she'd thought, but not late enough that Bruce would have gone to bed. She looked around her, puzzled and a little apprehensive. Where was he?

She swung up into her tree, looking around again to make sure no one saw her. If Bruce was running late (which seemed impossible), he might be coming up behind her. She had to be extra careful. She settled into the branches and looked inside the house. It was empty. Nothing looked disturbed, everything was as it should be. Except that Bruce was not there.

Alice eased back against the tree trunk and considered her options. She could leave now and try to find him, but she had no idea where to even begin. Maybe the docks? But by the time she got there he could have already made it back. And she didn't know where else he would go. She just didn't have enough information. She decided to wait. If she waited, eventually he would show up again. If he didn't… Well, she would handle that if it came to it.

She settled back, confident in her decision. After all, she had been waiting for more than two weeks. Surely she could wait just a while longer. She glanced at her watch again. The air was hot around her, like a green-scented blanket. Just a little while longer…

She was jerked out of a half doze by the sound of scuffling shoes. A shape emerged out of the shadows, the shape of man stumbling down the road. Alice sat up in the tree, fully alert now. The moon was full tonight and she could see clearly in its light that the man was Dr. Banner. She could also see that he was drunk off his ass. He stumbled against his open doorway, then lifted a paper bag to his lips and took three good swallows. He pushed himself off the frame and stumbled into the room, fumbling for the stool. He managed to pull it under himself and sit, but he wobbled for a while before he found his balance.

Alice was still sitting straight up, watching all of this with interest. After all, this was his first break from routine, it was definitely something to sit up and take note of. She had been beginning to think that the man might be a robot.

He fumbled around in the dark for a minute, but it was hard for Alice to figure out what he was fumbling for. There were patches of moonlight pouring through the door and windows of the house, but not enough for Alice to see clearly by. Whatever it was, apparently Bruce wasn't able to find it, because he stumbled to his feet, looked at the bottle in his hand, and then threw it against the far wall. It shattered with a loud crash that made Alice flinch. The force of the throw made Bruce stumble backward and sit hard on his mattress. He put his face in his hands, and then Alice heard the sobbing.

Her blood felt frozen in her veins. He was crying, huge gasping sobs that racked his whole body. She could see it from here, even in the bad lighting. What could make this man, quiet and gentle, with his routines and his journal, in the middle of nowhere, what could make him sob like that? What could have made him so broken? Her fingers gripped the branch of the tree so hard that her knuckles were white. She didn't know what to do. This wasn't interesting anymore. It was wrong. She shouldn't be watching this, shouldn't be invading on this. She prepared to slip quietly from her perch in the tree and to never come back here.

Then Bruce lifted his face, reached under the mattress, and pulled out a gun.

For a single instant, Alice froze in the branches, a knot of horror twisting her insides. Then she was out of the tree and running into the house.

"Bruce, don't!" she cried, skidding to a halt just inside the door.

He looked up in surprise, and then she saw a sort of resigned recognition.

"Oh," he said, his soft voice slurred, "It's you."

Alice didn't say anything. She couldn't take her eyes off the gun in his hand. She wasn't sure if she could keep her voice as steady as it needed to be. She could feel herself trembling and she clenched her hands into fists to keep it from showing.

Bruce looked down at the gun, turning it over in his hands absently.

"I figured you'd be long gone by now," he said, sounding confused and only slightly annoyed, "Thought you'd have given up and skipped along home." He glanced up and gave her a lopsided grin, "I imagine that tree isn't very comfortable."

Alice felt a jolt of panic. He knew. Most likely he'd known all along. But he wasn't angry. She took a deep breath to steady herself.

"No, it's not."

She kept her voice neutral and her eyes on the gun. She wanted to keep him calm. She wanted to keep herself calm. Bruce chuckled as he rubbed the butt of the gun between his hands.

"What are you even doing here?" he asked.

Alice didn't have a good answer for that, so she settled for honest.

"You said you were dangerous."

Bruce tilted his head to the side and looked like he might flop over, but he steadied himself.

"I told you I was dangerous, so… you followed me to my house?"

She could tell that his drunken mind was trying to make sense of that and it wasn't working. She didn't bother trying to explain.

"Bruce…" she said softly, gently, "What are you doing?"

He grinned and waved the gun in front of him.

"What's it look like, I'm doing?" he asked, in a good-natured tone that made Alice wince, "I'm gonna take care of the problem that is my existence. I was hoping to do it privately, but clearly," He waved the gun in her direction, "The powers that be did not care to grant me that."

"How is your existence a problem?" Alice asked, "All you do is work, eat, sleep, and write in your journal over there."

She jerked her thumb over to the small table in the corner. Bruce's eyes followed her thumb, then came back to rest on her.

"Seems to me you aren't much of a problem to anyone," she said.

"I'm not much of anything to anyone," Bruce murmured, his eyes back on the gun.

"I think Mika would disagree."

Bruce's eyes jerked back up to her. Alice's voice was a bit harsher than she'd intended, but she kept going

"Her folks too. You saved their daughter, the only thing they care about in the world."

She could seem him wavering, his drunkenness clouding his mind. The gun lowered to rest on his bent knees. But then he closed his eyes and shook his head vehemently, pressing his free hand to his temple.

"No, no you don't understand, you don't get it, I'm a monster!"

"You're a _doctor_!" Alice shouted, "Monsters don't save little girls, they destroy them!"

Her voice trembled at the truth of her own words and Bruce looked up at her, his eyes shining with tears. Alice allowed herself a single second to close her eyes and take a breath, to control herself again. When she opened them, Bruce was staring at his gun again. His finger was on the trigger now. Alice fought to remain calm, but the twisting in her gut made her feel faint. She could hear screaming in her head, the screams of her mother, cut short. She tried to push it away. She had to deal with this right now, in front of her.

"You don't understand," Bruce whispered, almost to himself.

Then he looked up and his face was calm. Alice felt her stomach lurch.

"Don't tell Mika."

Then he put the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

His entire body exploded. The force of it threw Alice back into the wall knocking the breath out of her. She landed in the remains of the bottle Bruce had brought home, the glass biting into her hands and arms as she pushed herself up and against the wall. A deep, angry roar filled the house and shook her down to her bones. Alice stared.

A huge man-like creature, at least three times the size of a human being, stood where Bruce had been. It's muscles rippled under deep green skin as it paced back and forth, grunting and twitching. She followed it with her eyes, but didn't dare move, hardly dared to breathe. The creature grunted and tossed its head a few times. Then it reared back and spit at the wall above her head. She heard a crack and looked up. There was a hole in the wall just a few feet above her, with cracks radiating from it.

The creature threw back its head and roared with every fiber of its being, muscles strained, great green fists clenched at its sides. It swung around and tossed the bed, flipping it end over end to smash against the wall. The table followed in the wake of the creature's rage. Wood splinters flew and Alice threw her arm over her head to protect her face. She heard the stool follow the table, and another roar split the air, loud enough to make Alice wonder if her hearing would be permanently impaired.

She raised her head again and stared at the creature. It was snorting and pacing like a caged animal. One of its huge fists pounded into the wall, leaving a large crumbling hole. The whole house shook. Alice looked up as dust floated down around her from the unsteady roofing.

 _So,_ she thought, _this is how it ends. It's finally going to end._

She sighed and relaxed, closing her eyes as the creature roared again. She waited.

But nothing happened. There were no more roars, no more stomping. The house was eerily quiet. Slowly, Alice opened her eyes.

The creature was gone. Alice looked around in a panic. There was no way it could have fit through the doorway without causing some kind of damage. It was like it had simply vanished. Alice carefully rolled into a crouch on the balls of her feet, still looking for the green creature. But instead there was a man lying face down on the floor, ordinary-looking except for being entirely naked. The curly brown hair confirmed her suspicions. It was Bruce.

Alice felt her heart skip and she stumbled over to him, putting her fingers to his neck. His pulse was strong and rapid, and his breathing was normal. He was just unconscious. She sat back and saw a smear of bright red on Bruce's neck. Her pulse fluttered again until she looked down at her hands. There were deep bloody cuts on both of her palms. It was her blood on Bruce's neck, not his.

Once her initial panic had subsided, Alice sat back and considered what had just happened. Bruce looked no worse for wear, despite the fact that the last time she'd seen him, he'd had a gun in his mouth and finger on the trigger. There was no sign of a bullet wound. He looked perfectly fine. And when he had pulled that trigger… that explosion… and that _thing_ _…_

" _You don't understand_ _… I'm a monster!"_

Bruce's words resonated in her mind. Monster… She looked down at the doctor, now perfectly normal, and she remembered that hint of something in his eyes that she'd seen at the docks, that power that had glimmered just under the surface of him. And she finally understood what he meant. She smiled and shook her head.

"Well, you weren't kidding, Doc," she said, "You are definitely dangerous."

Her hands were stinging and burning like hell. She looked down at the rest of her. Her jean shorts were covered in big splotches of blood. Shrugging, she wiped her hands on what was left of them and looked around for something she could use for bandages. She saw a duffle bag in the corner that looked like it had remained untouched. With only a little bit of self-consciousness, she dug around in the bag and came up with a clean black T-shirt with several holes in it. She used the holes to rip the thing into strips. She cleaned the bits of glass out of the cuts as best she could, spread on some antibiotic ointment she found in one of the bag pockets, then wrapped her hands tightly in her make-shift bandages. It wasn't a pretty job, but it would do for now.

She then turned to the naked Bruce still laying unconscious in the dirt. Dangerous or not, 'monster' or not, she couldn't very well leave him like this. She looked around and saw the tossed mattress in the far corner of the room. She picked her way over and righted it, dragging it to the middle of the floor where Bruce lay. She picked up the thin green blanket and gave it a shake to get most of the dirt out. Then she laid it over Bruce's still form and carefully turned him over and up onto the mattress.

As she tucked the blanket in around him, he moaned softly. Alice paused and sat back, cautious. Slowly, Bruce opened his eyes and squinted as if into a bright light. He caught sight of her, then turned away, his hand over his eyes.

"Ungh… What happened?" he rasped.

Alice hesitated.

"You passed out," she said finally, "I was just getting you settled in."

Bruce looked up and stared at her for a moment. Alice knew that he could see the truth in her eyes. It wasn't really something she could hide.

"Did I hurt anyone?" he asked, his voice level and cold.

Alice was grateful that her hands were on the floor and out of sight.

"No," she said, "No one was hurt."

He let out a sigh and closed his eyes, his head falling to the side as he slipped back into unconsciousness. Alice settled into a comfortable sitting position next to him. She just wanted to keep an eye on him, just for a little while, just to make sure…


	4. Chapter 4

Alice didn't remember falling asleep, but the next time her eyes opened, sunlight was streaming through the windows. If she hadn't been curled up on Bruce's mattress, covered with his blanket and his pillow under her head, she might have believed she'd dreamed everything, the gun shot and the huge green creature…

She sat up slowly, painfully aware of all her aches and bruises. Bruce was standing in the rubble of what had probably been his table, leafing through his journal. He glanced up at her over the glasses perched on his nose and gave her a wry smile.

"Good morning."

His voice was crisp as he snapped the journal shut. Alice resisted the urge to flinch or squirm. He crouched down in front of her, sliding his glasses up to nestle in his messy curls.

"You lied to me."

Alice was still a little fuzzy, but she was awake enough to feel indignant.

"Excuse me?"

Bruce gestured at her with his journal.

"You told me no one got hurt."

Alice looked down at her hands. The strips of black t-shirt were gone, replaced with clean white bandages.

"And judging from the way you're moving," Bruce continued in the same clipped tone, "You're feeling the after effects of some other injuries too."

He tucked the journal under his arm, reached into his pocket and pulled out a pill bottle. He tapped out two tablets and held them out to her.

"These should help with the pain."

Alice narrowed her eyes. She didn't like that emotionless expression, or his cool, acerbic tone, but she took the pills and swallowed them as Bruce watched. She glared at him despite herself, and that produced a humorless smile. He rolled to his feet, tapping his journal in the palm of his hand as he paced in front of her.

"But you know," he said, "The lie isn't even what's really bugging me."

"I didn't…" Alice tried to cut in, but the doctor just kept talking over her.

"No, see, what really bothers me, what I really just don't get..." He stooped down again so he was level with her, eye to eye and just short of touching, "...is why you're still here."

He stared at her for a minute, studying her face.

"You could have run, any normal person would have run. So why did you stay? Why didn't you run?"

Alice met his eyes steadily and without expression. She remembered how she'd felt the night before, sitting against the wall, her senses bombarded by a creature that couldn't be real, but was right there in front of her, the sounds of wood shattering, and the smell of dust as it sifted down from the unstable rooftop. Any normal person would have been afraid. Any normal person would have run. But she hadn't run. She couldn't tell Bruce the truth, the relief that she'd felt as the roof above her had trembled. That was her secret to keep. But there was no lie she could tell that would satisfy the curiosity she could see in his eyes. So she told him the closest thing to the truth that she could.

"I didn't run, because I wasn't scared."

Bruce's eyes narrowed and his jaw set.

"What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said," she snapped, "I didn't leave because I'm not afraid of you, Dr. Banner. And that thing I saw, it was you, wasn't it?"

Bruce shook his head and rolled back onto his feet, pacing the floor again.

"If this is some stupid play at nobility, you can just stop, okay? I don't need saving."

"That wasn't what it looked like last night," Alice said, carefully working her way up to standing, "What if… that… other guy," The corners of Bruce's mouth twitched up for a moment, "What if he hadn't saved your ass last night?"

"Well then the world would be a little bit safer now, wouldn't it?"

"What about Mika?"

She had the pleasure of seeing Bruce flinch.

"What about all the other people in this city, living all around you, _dying_ around you, that need your help?" she added, "You're a doctor for God's sake, what the hell are you doing working at the damn docks?"

"Trying to stay out of it!" Bruce shouted, "And I was doing a damn fine job until you showed up! The one time I actually decide to give a damn, I get followed, and waylaid, and I can't even shoot myself in the privacy of my own home!"

"I was trying to help you!"

"I don't need your help, goddammit!"

He slammed his hands against the wall on either side of her face. Alice glared up at him, her feet set and her fists clenched.

Suddenly the rage drained out of his face and he just stood there, staring down at her until Alice began to feel uncomfortable. She had to fight the urge to squirm.

"What?" she snapped.

"You were telling the truth," he said, sounding like he barely believed it.

He took a step back and Alice relaxed a little. He was still staring at her, incredulously.

"Who are you?"

Feeling self-conscious, Alice brushed a hand through her hair and unnecessarily straightened her shirt.

"My name is Alice Ripley."

They stared at each other across the room for a moment. Alice could tell that he was really studying her now, not trying to scare or intimidate her, but really trying to figure her out. She kept her face expressionless. She really didn't want him reading anything about her.

"Dr. Banner, I…"

"I'm not really a doctor," he blurted out.

Alice arched an eyebrow and he rolled his eyes.

"Okay, I mean, I _am_ a doctor, but… I'm more of a specialist."

"A specialist?" Alice said, her voice betraying her incredulity, "In what, giant rage mutations?"

He actually laughed at that.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that. You could also say I have a PhD in nuclear physics with a focus on gamma radiation, but really, why split hairs?"

"Gamma radiation?" Alice asked, "So, you… build bombs?"

Bruce smirked.

"I could I'm sure, but my research was more focused on the… biological applications."

"Ah, right, so this is like a…" She swirled her finger in his direction, "A mad scientist thing."

Bruce shuffled awkwardly, shifting his journal from one hand to the other.

"More like a lab accident. Anyway, that's not the point," He cleared his throat, "I'm telling you this because you asked why I was working at the docks. I'm doing exactly that, working. I've made a few…"

He paused searching for words.

"...undesirable acquaintances thanks to, as you've so aptly named him, 'The Other Guy'. I've been trying to stay off the radar. The dock was the first place that would hire me, no questions asked. I'm not a doctor, so I'm not working as a doctor."

"But you _are_ a doctor!" Alice exclaimed, "At least enough of one to make a difference. You saved Mika's life!"

Bruce waved away her words.

"That was easily diagnosable if she'd been taken to a real doctor…"

"But she couldn't go to a doctor. That's the point! There are so many people in this city who die because they can't afford a doctor, or medicine. They could really use your help."

Bruce shook his head and ran a hand through his hair.

"It's not safe. And how exactly am I supposed to live? I can't just quit my job to help the poor; as you can see," He spread out his hands to the empty shack, "I'm not exactly well off."

"You don't have to quit," Alice said, "I'll help you."

Alice was just as surprised as Bruce looked. And he asked the very question she was asking herself.

"And how would you do that?"

Her mind raced.

"I… I can be the go between, set up appointments, that kind of thing."

Bruce waved a hand in the air, stopping her.

"Let me get this straight. Are you offering to be my secretary?"

Alice thought about it for a minute, and then shrugged, trying to sound casual.

"Yeah, I guess I am."

Bruce stared at her for a long moment.

"Now why would you do that?" he asked, "Forgive me, but you don't exactly strike me as a philanthropist."

Alice swallowed.

"I just want to help."

And that was true. Mostly. Bruce still didn't look terribly convinced, but Alice just kept talking, hoping to get past talking about _her_. Talking about her, about her motivations, was dangerous territory.

"Besides, once word gets out, you'll be taken care of. These people may be poor, but they still have a little bit of pride. They'll pay you anyway they can, and it'll still be cheaper than trying to go to a 'real' doctor."

She did the finger quotes in the air and Bruce rolled his eyes.

"What if I say no?"

"You won't," She knew it was a gamble, but she took it anyway, "You won't say no for the same reason you didn't just walk out of that store three weeks ago. You didn't know me, and you didn't care. Hell, you still don't. But you're a good man, Bruce Banner. And good men don't just walk away."

He scoffed.

"I've been walking away for years, Miss Ripley, you don't know anything about me."

"I know you have a huge green man-thing living inside you, but the first thing you ask when you wake up is if you hurt anyone."

Bruce stared at her, speechless.

"I don't need to know anything else."

It was true. Despite the 'Other Guy' lurking under his skin, Bruce Banner was no monster. He was a good man. She could see it in his eyes even now as they flickered back and forth, trying to work out some way to argue with her, trying to find a way out. But he didn't have a way out.

"I could just go," he said, waving his hand at the doorway, "I could just leave, right now, shake the dust of this place off my shoes and never look back."

Alice snorted.

"Okay, two things. One, the fact that you just told me that means you aren't even considering it. And two, I would follow you and never let you live it down."

Bruce blinked mutely and she grinned.

"You aren't the only one that knows how to walk away, Dr. Banner, I've been doing it my entire adult life. Don't test me."

She regretted the words almost as soon as they were out of her mouth. Bruce tilted his head to the side, his brow furrowed.

"What are you running from, Miss Ripley?"

She dropped her eyes and ran her fingers through her hair again to give herself time to think. Then she looked up and forced the grin back on her face.

"I guess you'll have to stick around and find out."

It was an incentive, a carrot at the end of stick she would never, ever drop, but she was willing to dangle it in front of him for a while. After a moment's hesitation, Bruce threw his hands up in the air.

"Fine," he said, "Why the hell not? It's not like I have anywhere to go, I'm practically on the edge of the world as it is."

Alice smirked, but inwardly she was wondering what in God's name she'd just signed up for.

_Jesus, Alice... what the hell were you thinking?_


	5. Chapter 5

Even running all the way from the hostel to the store, Alice was still a few minutes late for her afternoon shift. She burst through the door trying to catch her breath.

"Sorry I'm late," she said, rushing past Ambi and throwing her bag under the counter, "I got… caught up in some personal stuff."

"Alice!"

Mika's sweet voice rang out behind her. The little girl scrambled to her feet and rushed to Alice's side, clutching a simple rag doll tightly to her chest. If Alice hadn't known it, she might never have guessed that Mika had ever been sick. She felt her heart swell and tried to push the feelings aside. Her emotions were running rampant today. She smiled and ruffled Mika's hair.

"Hey, princess, how are you feeling?"

Mika pondered the question. Alice knew that, even though her English was excellent due to her parents' tutoring, she still sometimes had trouble with some phrasing. Alice waited patiently, letting her think it through.

Finally, Mika looked up and said proudly, "I feel fine, thank you."

Alice grinned.

"That's very good, I'm glad."

"Mika," Ambi said gently, "We will be going home soon. Pick up your things, please."

Mika obediently went back to the corner and began collecting her dolls in a little box. Alice turned her back, whispering as Ambi began to count the drawer.

"How is she, Ambi, really?"

Ambi smiled widely.

"She is wonderful, Alice. She will go back to school next week. Halim and I are so grateful."

Alice paused. She had been wrestling with the idea of telling the Takeris about Bruce. She knew that they wanted more than anything to repay him for what he had done, and she wasn't really sure how Bruce would feel about that. But when she caught a glimpse of Mika, humming quietly to herself in the corner as she packed away her toys, she knew that she couldn't keep this to herself.

"Ambi, I found him."

Ambi stopped counting and looked up at Alice, her eyes wide.

"You… You found him? The man who saved Mika?"

Alice nodded.

"I've been looking for a while now. I didn't want to tell you, in case nothing came of it."

"Where is he? Is he alright?" Ambi asked, her voice a frantic whisper.

Alice had to consider her words carefully. She didn't want to hurt Ambi's feelings.

"He's fine, Ambi. He's just… He's very private. He was actually pretty angry that I found him at all." The green form of Bruce's rage flashed in her mind, but she moved past it, "Everything is fine now, but he wanted you to know that he doesn't want anything from you."

"Will you see him again?" Ambi asked. Her voice was breathless and Alice could see her thoughts churning behind her eyes.

"Yes, but…"

Just then Mika walked up to her mother and tugged on her pants' leg, jerking Ambi out of her thoughts.

"Mama, I'm done. Are we going home to Papa now?"

Ambi smiled and kissed Mika's head.

"Yes, my darling," she said, "In a moment."

She turned back to the drawer and said nothing else about Bruce, but Alice was nervous now. She didn't want the Takeris to attempt to pay him through her. She was pretty sure that would be awkward for both of them. But she decided to let it go for now and deal with it if something actually happened. She'd had a rough night and a long day, and all she really wanted was just to stare out the window and think about nothing for a while. So when Ambi and Mika left, Mika grinning and waving until they walked out of sight, Alice did exactly that. Then, after she closed the shop, she went straight back to the hostel and took the opportunity to get the first good night's sleep she'd had in days. She was too tired to even have nightmares.

The next day, Alice showed up early for her shift to make up for the day before. Halim smiled at her when she walked in and she could already see the difference Mika's health had made to his own. He looked younger now, more energetic, and definitely happier. They spoke little as Halim counted the drawer, but before he left, he grinned broadly at her, a twinkle in his eye.

"I have something for you."

Alice felt her stomach drop and her mind started churning up excuses not to take his money. But instead of reaching into his pocket, or into the till, he opened the door that led to the cooler behind the beverage displays. There was a basket sitting on one of the shelves.

"For you and your doctor friend," he said.

Alice pulled back the cloth that covered the basket and peeked inside. There was homemade flat bread, a hunk of cheese and a container that held some sort of meat and vegetable mixture. Alice looked up at Halim, surprised.

"It isn't much, but it is what we have to give," he said humbly, "Please, will you take it to him?"

Alice stared at him, then back at the food, trying to find a way to say no. But she knew that she couldn't. This was something that really mattered to Halim and Ambi. She couldn't just ignore it.

"I will, I promise," she said, forcing a smile.

Halim looked like he might burst with happiness. He took both of her hands in his and gripped them tightly.

"Thank you, Alice, thank you so much for everything."

Alice continued to smile and nod until he finally left, but once he was gone, she started twisting the chain around her neck anxiously as she stared out the window and imagined how Bruce would react. Would he be grateful? Irritated? Angry? Would it mean nothing to him at all? Honestly, she couldn't decide which would be worse.

At the end of the night she locked up the shop, the basket held in the crook of her elbow, and went to Bruce's house. He was lying on his mattress, pushed back into its original spot along the far wall, scribbling in his journal by the light of a candle perched precariously close to his head. Alice leaned against the door frame and cleared her throat. Bruce looked up over his glasses and she held up the basket with a wry smile.

"I brought dinner."

Bruce snapped his journal shut and sat up, hooking his arms around his knees. He studied her for a moment and Alice wondered what exactly he was looking at.

"Well," he said finally, "That was very… domestic of you."

She rolled her eyes and came inside.

"I said I brought it, I didn't say I made it."

"Then who did?"

"Ambika Takeri, the mother of the little girl you saved," Alice said, very deliberately placing the basket on the ground in front of him.

Bruce peeked under the cloth.

"And why, pray tell, are you sharing it with me?" he asked.

"Because she didn't make it for me, she made it for you."

Bruce's eyes jerked up. Alice crossed her arms and stared him down. She tried to keep her features neutral, but in her head she was daring him to say one word against it. For a moment, it looked as if he might, but finally he just sighed and stood up, stretching his back.

"Well, I'm sure it would be better warmed up."

He grabbed the basket and stepped around Alice, right out the door. A few seconds later, he poked his head back inside.

"Do me a favor and grab the skillet in my bag, would you? And a couple bottles of water too."

Then he disappeared outside again. A little of the tension Alice had been feeling relaxed. That hadn't been as bad as she'd expected. She rolled her shoulders to loosen them up and did as she was told.

Outside, Bruce was on his hands and knees blowing a flame into life in a handful of dead grass. As the tiny flicker began to char the grasses, he started stacking twigs in a formation that Alice recognized easily from her childhood. Before she knew it a steady fire blazed in what remained of the stool that had been obliterated the night before, and the contents of the basket were simmering on some hot coals Bruce had pulled from the heart of the fire.

Alice sat cross-legged against the trunk of a tree, the same tree she had spent the better part of three weeks in, and watched all this with quiet fascination. Bruce's movements were quick and precise, like he'd done this hundreds of times, and she supposed he probably had. With barely a glance up, Bruce handed her two branches, a round of flat bread skewered on each one.

"Wanna get those toasted up?"

Alice scrambled forward and took the skewers, holding them just out of reach of the flames. The memory of another crackling fire crept to mind unbidden, this one smelling of pine needles and clean earth, the fresh smell of rain on the air, echoing laughter and burnt marshmallows. She had always liked the crispy black skin. The memory was so painful that Alice physically ached…

"Alice!"

She jumped and realized that one of the rounds of bread had turned black. She swore and jerked them both out of the fire, examining them. Luckily, only the one had been burned. She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. The memory had faded now, but it still hurt.

"A Southern girl with no camping skills?" Bruce said, a trace of humor in his voice, "What kind of childhood did you have anyway?"

Alice had to bite back a venomous retort. She didn't like the inquisitive look he was giving her. She dropped her eyes and handed him the bread that wasn't burned.

"Sorry," she managed to grind out through clenched teeth. It wasn't what she wanted to say, but it seemed to be all she was capable of.

Bruce took the bread and pulled it off the branch in one smooth motion.

"Where did you go?" he asked, his eyes turned back to the steaming skillet of meat and vegetables.

"I'm sorry?" she snapped.

Even though he was no longer looking at her, she still felt tense. But despite her sharp tone, Bruce's voice remained calm and even.

"Where did you go?" he asked again, "Your body was present, but your mind was definitely somewhere else."

Alice wanted to say it was none of his damn business, but instead she took a deep breath and got control of herself. Acting defensive wouldn't win her any favors. And the secret she shared with him, the creature that resided under his skin, made it difficult to deny him even a partial answer to his unassuming question. She dropped her eyes and pulled the burned bread off her stick.

"I was home."

"Go there often?"

The touch of humor had returned to his voice and there was the trace of a smile on his face. She had to remind herself that he didn't mean anything by it.

"I try not to."

To her surprise, Bruce turned back to the food without saying another word. He used the edge of his shirt to grab the hot handle and pull the pan off the heat to sit steaming between them.

"So, any news on the philanthropic front?" he asked, casually but pointedly changing the subject. Alice scrambled for a moment to switch gears.

"Not yet. I'm sure word has gotten around about Mika though, and now the Takeris know I can find you I'm sure it won't be long before people start asking."

Bruce worked his way around a full mouth as he replied, "That's great because this stuff is amazing! What is it?"

Alice shrugged and took a bite. Even though the bread was burnt the hearty filling touched with spices was divine. She'd had something similar to it before, but she had no idea what it actually was. Bruce scooped up another mouthful with a piece of bread.

"Well whatever it is, if this is how I'm getting paid I can see this working out."

They ate in silence for a while. Alice glanced up at Bruce and found herself drawing parallels between him and the beast that lingered just underneath the surface. The hair, the facial structure, they were roughly the same, just bigger and greener. But it was difficult, even now, to imagine that Bruce and the 'Other Guy' were the same person. She wondered how that had come to be. Was he born like this? Had something happened to make him this way? She wondered what Bruce even called him, or if he called him anything at all.

Bruce caught her eye, "What?"

Alice shook her head, dropping her eyes back to her bread.

"Nothing."

Bruce raised an eyebrow.

"You already know my deepest, darkest secret," he said, "If you want to ask something, ask it."

Alice was tempted by the offer, but it was a trap and she knew it, even if he didn't. Such doors opened both ways. If she asked about Bruce's past, he could in turn ask about hers and she would feel obliged to answer. And she wasn't ready to give up her deepest, darkest secret. Not now. Not ever.

"Just forget it."

She could feel him watching her for a moment longer, but just as he had before, he dropped the conversation without any other comment. It was strange for Alice, knowing that she had backed herself into a tight corner twice in one night and yet didn't feel trapped. She felt more like a wild animal that had been tagged and released for observation. The feeling was unnerving. But what distressed her even more was that she had put herself into the situation in the first place. She wasn't accustomed to sharing secrets with people. The obligation she felt to share herself as a response to knowing Bruce's secret was stronger than she'd expected. It was something new she would have to learn to control, but in a way she was grateful for the experience. She was sure it would turn out to be a useful skill.

They finished the last of the bread and filling, and after cleaning up and kicking dirt over the fire, Alice gathered the basket and container to take back to the Takeris.

"Tell Mrs. Takeri that the food was excellent," Bruce said, standing in front of her with his hands shoved into his pockets.

"I will," Alice said, "And I'll drop by if something comes up."

Bruce nodded, shuffling and worrying his glasses in his hands. Alice could feel the beginnings of an awkward pause, so she made a show of slinging her bag over her shoulder and smiled.

"Well, good night, Doctor Banner."

Then she abruptly turned and headed into the darkness, feeling the adrenaline rush of a narrow escape.


	6. Chapter 6

Alice had been right about word traveling fast. The next day, during her night shift, a young man in shabby clothes slipped into the store, his eyes darting nervously, a wrinkled paper clutched in his hand. He shuffled up to the counter, his eyes firmly on the floor, and mumbled something in Hindi. Alice leaned forward.

"What did you say?" she asked, trying to speak clear Hindi, but knowing that her touch of Southern accent made the words even harder to understand.

The man didn't look up, but he repeated himself a little more loudly, and held out his fist to her. Alice thought she heard the words 'father' and 'sickness', and very clearly understood the word for 'pay'. She took the wad of paper from his hand and smoothed it out. There was a roughly drawn map and a small envelope. She peeked inside. There were several crumpled bills. She glanced back at the man who was glancing from side to side like a wanted fugitive. Alice felt her stomach tighten. This was probably all the money he had in the world.

She carefully closed the envelope again and slid it back across the counter. The young man finally met her eyes, looking panicked. He started speaking rapidly and shoved the envelope back to her, but Alice was firm.

"Cikitsaka," she said, a word that she had just learned for this exact situation. It meant 'doctor'. Or at least, she was pretty sure that it did. The young man stopped gibbering and stared at her.

"Aja rata," she said, the word for 'tonight', pointing to a spot on the rough map that was circled. She assumed this was his house. "Cikitsaka."

She wasn't even entirely sure she was using the words correctly, but apparently it was enough. The man relaxed a little and took the envelope when she handed it to him again.

"Aja rata," she said again, with a smile.

"Aja rata," the man repeated wearily, "Dhan'yavada. Thank you."

After he left, Alice stared at the map she held in her hand. There were symbols scrawled all over the page and Hindi phrases that would probably take her the better part of forever to figure out. She sighed and dug into her bag, pulled out a battered Hindi to English dictionary, and set to work trying to decipher what she could.

Business was slow that night and right at ten o'clock, Alice locked up the shop and set off for Bruce's house, almost at a run, sliding to a stop in the doorway. Bruce took one look at her and snapped his journal shut, sitting up from the mattress in one smooth motion.

"You got something," he said, not as a question, but a statement.

Alice nodded and held out the scribbled map.

"It's not far I think, just a few streets north of here."

Bruce stood up and took the map from her, studying it in the dim light.

"No, not far at all," he muttered, "So what is it?"

Alice suddenly felt woefully unprepared.

"I… I think his father is sick?"

Bruce looked up at her over his glasses.

"Who's father? Sick with what?"

Alice shook her head.

"I don't know, some guy that came into the shop today. He didn't speak English."

"We're in India, of course he didn't speak English," Bruce said, still staring at her and making her squirm uncomfortably, "Are you telling me that you don't speak Hindi?"

Alice crossed her arms and shrugged, trying not to let him see how inadequate he was making her feel.

"I know enough to get by. And a lot of the people I've met speak at least a little English. It's never been an issue."

Bruce rolled his eyes and folded up the map, stuffing it in the back pocket of his jeans.

"Yeah, well, where we're going, they don't teach 'Dumb Tourist 101', so get ready for your crash course in mingling with the locals."

Alice resented being referred to as a dumb tourist, but before she could think of a clever reply, Bruce had grabbed a bag from the corner and blown out his candle, plunging them both into the complete darkness of a cloudy night. Alice jumped and fumbled behind her for the door frame. She bumped into something solid and yelped. A hand caught her arm and steadied her.

"Calm down, it's just me."

She could hear the amusement in Bruce's voice and immediately felt sheepish. After a couple more blinks, she could see him standing next to her in the darkness. She pulled away from his grip.

"Sorry," she muttered, unnecessarily adjusting the strap of the bag on her shoulder.

"You okay now?" he asked.

Alice nodded.

"Good."

He slipped out of the house into the dark streets, Alice following close behind him. He didn't even glance at the map in his pocket, navigating the dimly lit streets with ease and confidence. They quickly reached a row of small shacks and finally, Bruce reached into his back pocket and pulled out the map. After a cursory glance, he walked up to one of the doors and knocked. It opened a crack and the young man that had come into the store peeked out. Bruce leaned forward and spoke softly in fluent Hindi. Alice felt a twinge of jealousy. He didn't sound like he had any accent at all. The young man opened the door and ushered them both into the small room beyond.

The single room was lit by a small fire in the center of the dirt floor. Nestled in a pile of blankets against one wall was an old man, his sparse hair and beard gray, and wrinkles carving deep furrows over his face. He looked so thin and fragile that Alice thought one touch might break him. He opened his eyes and they were milky white. He was blind.

The old man called out in a husky voice and his son knelt beside him, soothing him. Alice heard the word 'cikitsaka' and Bruce was motioned over. Alice slid herself into a shadowed corner and watched with increasing curiosity as Bruce knelt beside the old man. They spoke in soft voices and whispers, so it was hard for her to hear what they were saying, but the older man seemed completely at ease in Bruce's care.

As she watched him work, gently yet efficiently, Alice began to wonder what had happened to the man of just a few days ago, sobbing in despair in his empty house. It was as if he had become a completely different person. Her eyes followed his movements and her ears listened to the rhythm of his words as he spoke and asked questions. Everything about him was calm, soothing. It was deceptively alluring and Alice wondered how hard he had to work to keep up the act.

Finally Bruce stood and pulled the son to the side, speaking quietly with him. The young man nodded vigorously at everything that Bruce told him, and then reached into his pocket and handed Bruce the dirty envelope, speaking rapidly. Alice didn't know why, but Bruce's eyes flicked to her for just a brief moment as the young man pressed the envelope into his hand. There was a pause as Bruce looked down at the envelope, and Alice suddenly knew what was happening, even if she didn't understand it. For some reason, Bruce didn't want to take the money.

Alice hurried to Bruce's side, pressing her hand over his to keep the envelope in his grip. She could see him staring at her out of the corner of her eye, but she gave her full attention to the young man in front of them.

"Dhan'yavada," she said, with a smile, "Thank you."

The young man smiled and, with a few more muttered words that she didn't understand, he went to his father's side. Alice took Bruce's arm and they walked out of the house together. She didn't dare to look at him until they were out on the street. When she did, she didn't give him a chance to speak.

"If they offer to pay you, you have to take it or you'll insult them," she said quietly. She was surprised she was even having this conversation with him.

Bruce looked dazedly at her, then down at the envelope still clutched in his hand.

"But I didn't do anything," he muttered.

"What was wrong with his father?" Alice asked, her voice steady and neutral, trying to bring Bruce back to reality. He seemed a long way off right then.

"He… It was food poisoning," he said, "Just needs plenty of fluids. I gave them some ideas what to do, but he might not even survive."

"But you gave them hope," Alice said, gripping his wrists tightly, "That's what they're paying you for. You gave them a chance and that's all they want."

Bruce looked around them, at the dirty broken down shacks.

"But… How can I take this from them?"

Alice sighed and forced his fingers closed around the envelope again.

"If it makes you feel better, you can use it to buy supplies, medicines. You're probably going to need that stuff anyway."

Bruce looked down at her and she held his eyes steadily, watching him come back from the haze he had been in.

"Your accent is terrible," he said.

Alice jerked back and he gave her a half smile. She scowled at him and let go of his hand, adjusting her bag self-consciously.

"Yeah, well, it's not my fault. I grew up in the South."

"That is no excuse. I'm surprised these people can understand a word you say," he said, his smile broadening as he teased her, "If I'm going to be seen with you, we're going to have to work on that."

Alice was surprised by how casually he said that. _If I'm going to be seen with you_ _…_ He was still smiling, not teasing now, just kind, gentle, the kind of smile it was hard not to return. but Alice managed. She gripped the strap of her bag in her fists, forcing her hands to be still.

"Well, I guess you'll just have to show me how it's done, Dr. Banner," she said, glad that her voice didn't waver, "Your Hindi seems flawless. Was your mother native or something?"

They had started walking again, slowly. Bruce shook his head.

"No. And even if she was, it wouldn't have done me any good. She died when I was young."

"Your dad then," Alice said, more as a statement rather than a question.

The small smile that Bruce had been wearing disappeared and Alice felt her stomach drop.

"No," he said, with a touch of bitterness in his voice, "My father wasn't particularly interested in teaching me anything."

Alice had to suppress a wince. She had gone too far, delved too deep, and she felt a knot of anxiety in her stomach. Quickly, she tried to get control of the conversation before it had a chance to lash back at her.

"So, do you speak any other languages?"

The shadow on Bruce's face lifted slightly, but his easy smile didn't return.

"Fluently? I speak Spanish, French, Italian, and I can just barely get by in Brazilian Portuguese."

Alice raised an eyebrow, impressed despite herself.

"Damn. But why Brazilian Portuguese?"

Bruce shrugged.

"I spent some time in Rio de Janeiro a few years back, Rocinha."

Alice perked up.

"Really? When?"

He thought about it for a moment before he replied.

"2008, I think."

"No way!" she exclaimed, and it made Bruce jump, "I was in Rio in '08!"

Bruce's eyebrows went up.

"Really?"

"Yeah, I was working in this soda factory, but there was this industrial accident, some sort of explosion, so I relocated."

When Alice looked at him, the smirk was back on Bruce's face.

"An industrial accident?" he said, "Is that what they're calling it these days?"

It took a moment for Alice to get the hint.

"That was… That was you?"

Bruce's smirk widened.

"Looks like you and I relocated about the same time. What a coincidence."

"Yeah," Alice said, trying to wrap her mind around it.

They had lived in the same town, worked at the same factory, and yet, they had never met. What were the odds? Absently, she touched the two rings hanging underneath the fabric of her tank top, before she realized what she was doing and dropped her hand quickly. If Bruce noticed he didn't say anything.

The road leading to Bruce's little shack was pitch black. Alice glanced at her watch. It was late. Really late. She seemed to be having a lot of late nights recently.

"Well, I'll let you know if anything else comes up," she said.

Bruce nodded, then after just a moment's hesitation, he said, "You should come by tomorrow night."

Alice blinked at him, tongue-tied.

"I'll try to help you with your Hindi," he said, "Really, you need all the help you can get."

Alice glared, "I think I can manage."

"I don't," Bruce said, that hint of a smirk on his face again, "I'm telling you, Country Girl, that accent is atrocious."

Alice opened her mouth to retort, but couldn't think of anything to say. It was true, her accent was pretty awful. She could use the extra practice.

She sighed, frustrated.

"Fine. I'll come. But you're bringing dinner this time."

Bruce grinned.

"Deal."


	7. Chapter 7

Despite Bruce's doubts, the old man got better. A few days later a young woman came into the store and, thanks to her Hindi lessons with Bruce, Alice was able to figure out that the old man's son had sent her there to ask for help. The woman's husband seemed to have cut himself and now had an infection. When Alice and Bruce arrived at their home that evening, Bruce was able to determine that the infection wasn't serious and patched the man up. The couple paid in homemade curry which Alice and Bruce enjoyed thoroughly around a small fire back at Bruce's little hut.

Bruce insisted that Alice speak Hindi at all times when she was with him, forcing her into conversations about her day. It was hard and Alice's dictionary got a lot of use, but Bruce was admirably patient with her, walking her through phrasing and pronunciation. He continued to tease her about her accent, but she knew that she was getting better, despite his jabs at her.

"I have something for you," he said.

He dug into his bag and tossed something small and shiny at her. She caught it easily in the palm of her hand. It was a little black cell phone, cheap and completely unremarkable. Bruce held a matching phone in his own hand.

"I thought we might need a better way to communicate," he said, "Just in case."

Alice didn't know what 'just in case' might entail, but it probably wasn't a bad idea. She flipped it open. It already had a number programmed in, labeled simply BRUCE.

"It's prepaid," Bruce continued, "Untraceable, of course. I got a few minutes programmed in already."

Alice nodded, turning the phone over and over in her hands. She felt oddly touched by the gesture. A lump was forming in her throat and she swallowed to try to get rid of it.

"Thank you," she said, her voice hoarse despite her best efforts.

There was a pause.

"You're welcome," Bruce replied, his voice soft and sounding slightly awkward.

Alice dropped the phone into her bag and picked up her curry again, not looking at Bruce, feeling a little embarrassed. It was just a stupid phone. After a moment of awkward silence, Alice pulled out her Hindi dictionary and began reciting phrases Bruce had asked her to practice. Smoothly, he transitioned into the roll of teacher and they carried on as if nothing had happened.

The next few weeks became increasingly busy. Word of her contact spread quickly and Alice soon had more people coming to the store looking for a doctor than to buy groceries. She found that they got more use out of their phones than she had expected. She texted him whenever a new "patient" arrived and gave him details and directions. Sometimes, if he wasn't working at the docks, he was able to go to their home right then, while Alice was still working at the store.

Sometimes Bruce would text her a list of supplies and she would make a run to the pharmacy on her way to meet him. The pharmacist started to recognize her as 'the American doctor's assistant' and gave her a generous discount. But even more importantly, he started putting sample packs of powerful drugs into her bags, mostly antibiotics. When Alice showed them to Bruce he didn't speak for a long time, just sat and stared at the boxes of pills. But the look on his face told Alice how very important and precious they were.

No matter what the condition, Alice never turned anyone away, and Bruce was always paid in one way or another. Sometimes it was in cash, but usually it was food. Sometimes it was other things like cloth, or hand made clothes. One man even gave Bruce an old boom box. Alice bought batteries and a few classical and opera CDs, and that night they ate curry and listened to Tosca under the stars.

Bruce leaned back on his elbows, closed his eyes, and mouthed the Italian libretto that Alice had never been able to understand. He looked happy, not snarky or amused, but content. Alice pulled her knees up to her chest and watched him in the dim glow of the dying fire. The music was powerful, even though she couldn't understand the words.

" _It's not about the words, Alice."_

Her mother's voice, spoken years ago when she was a child, echoed in her head.

" _It's about how it makes you feel. You don't have to know the language to understand pain and longing and love. They're already inside you."_

"Whose rings are those?"

Bruce's voice startled her so badly that she jumped and dropped the rings around her neck. She hadn't even realized she was holding them, twisting them absently. Bruce's stare was intense enough to make her drop her eyes. She tucked the chain back under her tank top. She didn't know the words in Hindi, so she answered him in English.

"My parents' wedding rings."

Her tone was unintentionally short. She didn't like that he had startled her, that she had let her guard down. She didn't like that he knew this about her. She didn't like that he knew anything about her.

For once, he ignored the fact that she had used English, and his voice remained calm and gentle despite her snippy answer.

"What happened to them?"

Alice wanted to be angry at him for asking her that, for prying into her life. But an image came unbidden to her mind, of Bruce sitting alone, sobbing with his head in his hands. Of a gun shot and a large green secret that she couldn't unsee. And she couldn't bring herself to be angry at him or even to lie. So she told him as much truth as she was able.

"They died."

Her voice was so soft that she wasn't even sure he had heard her. But when she finally looked up, his expression told her that he had heard and, more importantly, understood what she had said and needed nothing more. She was grateful for that. Because she wasn't sure there was anything else she could give him. There were some things that were a part of her, things that had shaped her, that she didn't want to share. They were hers, thoughts and beliefs that no one else would understand, and to explain them would take away their meaning. She needed to keep them to herself. But if Bruce asked, she wasn't sure if she could lie to him.

The next night, Bruce played the CD of some rock band neither of them had ever heard of and Alice kept the Tosca in her bag.

Alice learned much more from Bruce than just language. She watched him carefully when he worked and tried her best to anticipate what he would need, whether it be gauze, or water, or tools. Bruce noticed her efforts and did his best to explain things to her as they worked, encouraging her questions and never making it feel like an imposition. She wasn't squeamish (she had seen her fair share of blood in her life) and she didn't shy away from whatever he needed, though she visibly cringed at the wet crunch as Bruce set a man's broken leg.

It wasn't all bad, of course. The day they delivered the Singhs' baby, a healthy boy, was a very good day. And they were able to help more people than Alice could have possibly imagined. But the more people they helped, the more people talked. Every day the patient list seemed to grow exponentially, and Alice found that she got a lot less sleep and drank a lot more coffee. She gave the Takeris the number to her cell phone so they could call if someone came in looking for her. There were some days that they saw two or three patients, and Alice would stumble to bed in the wee hours of the morning, getting only a few hours sleep before she had to get up and open the store. It wasn't good for her, she knew, but then again she hadn't been terribly keen on taking care of herself for a long time now. And if she could do something good in this world before her body gave out, so much the better. And they were doing good, she could see it every day, and for the first time in a long time, Alice actually wanted to get out of bed in the morning.

But then, Alice had her first really bad day.

She had been dreading this day for weeks now. She always dreaded this day. But it was made even worse by the fact that, instead of sleeping in like she'd planned, she found herself slogging to the market through a steady drizzle of rain in search of a new necklace. The clasp on her old chain had snapped the day before and she'd only just caught it before the rings had slipped away. They jangled in her pocket now, but that was only a temporary solution.

She was about to start haggling over the price of a cheap, nickle-plated number when her phone rang. It was Ambi and as soon as Alice answered, she could tell that something was wrong. Ambi's voice was calm, but forced as she explained what had happened. There had been a shooting nearby. They weren't terribly uncommon and Bruce had been called in for gunshot wounds before. But this wasn't just a simple gunshot wound. It was a little boy. He had been caught in some kind of crossfire and he was bleeding, badly.

She hung up with Ambi and started to text Bruce, but her hands were shaking too badly. Why today? Why did it have to be _today_? She called him instead and he picked up on the first ring.

"Alice, what's wrong?"

"Please tell me you aren't working."

She hadn't meant for her voice to tremble, but her whole body was shaking. There was a pause on the other end.

"Alice, tell me what happened."

She tried to get a grip on herself as she told him exactly what Ambi had told her. But she couldn't seem to get the damn tremor out of her voice.

When she finished, Bruce's voice came over the line, very calm and very direct.

"Alice, listen to me. I need you to go to the house and try to stop the bleeding. You've seen me do it before, you know what to do."

"But I…"

"I'll be there as soon as I can, but you have to help them get the blood slowed. Understand?"

She nodded before she remembered that he couldn't actually see her.

"Okay. Okay, I'll try."

"I'm on my way."

The phone went dead and for a moment Alice just stood in the dripping rain, staring at the blank screen shaking in her hand. Then she flipped it closed, took a deep breath, and started to run. She knew the back alleys of the city pretty well now, and in no time she was taking a set of stairs two at a time and banging on the door of an upstairs room. A middle aged man let her in, but when he didn't see anyone with her, his face paled.

"He's on his way," Alice gasped, "The doctor's coming."

The boy was lying on a mattress in a corner of the room, a woman crying over him, probably his mother. The boy looked about five years old. The face of a different little boy, much more familiar, flashed in Alice's mind and her stomach lurched, but she pushed it away. The boy was unconscious, but breathing. Blood had soaked through a towel pressed over his abdomen and soaked bright red into the mattress underneath him. Alice pressed a hand on the towel and it made a thick squish under the pressure.

"Another?" she asked, looking up at the man who was standing over her in a daze.

She could feel panic starting to build in her chest and she couldn't think of the word for towel. She pointed frantically at it in her hand.

"Another?"

The man shook his head slowly. Alice tried to hold back her frustration.

"Cloth? Shirt? Anything?"

But she had lost the man to his daze again. It was the woman who answered.

"Yes, yes, I will get it."

As the woman scrambled away, Alice very carefully rolled the boy over on to his side. It looked as if the bullet had gone through cleanly. That was good, it would make it easier when Bruce got here.

The woman came back with a stack of neatly folded shirts. Alice grabbed about two or three and pressed them against the wound on the boy's back, laying him gently back on the mattress. He moaned softly and the woman cried out, rushing to cradle his head in her lap and speaking rapid broken phrases that Alice couldn't understand. She kept working, taking about three more of the shirts and pressing them down over the soaked towel, putting her weight on it. The boy cried out and the woman began to speak frantically, but Alice ignored her. She had to keep pressure on the wound. The boy cried out again and started to struggle feebly. The woman reached out and grabbed Alice's wrists, pulling on them frantically and speaking so rapidly that Alice could barely understand her. But she heard enough to know that she was upset and wanted Alice to stop.

"I can't, I have to stop his blood," she said, her Hindi breaking up as she tried to concentrate on what she was doing.

The woman started slapping angrily at Alice's wrists, trying to make her stop. Finally, Alice grabbed the woman's arm and glared at her.

"You're his mother?" she asked.

The woman nodded, glaring right back at her.

"We want the doctor," she said, her voice angry, "Where is he?"

"He's coming," Alice said, "But I'm here now and I need to stop his blood. Help me."

The mother glared at her for another moment, until her husband stepped up and put a hand on her shoulder. He knelt between her and Alice, and looked up with sorrowful eyes.

"What do we do?"

With the help of the boy's parents, Alice kept applying pressure to the wound, stacking shirts on top of each other as they soaked through. There was so much blood and she couldn't look at his little face, because every time she did, she saw another little boy soaked with blood, and she had to bite back a scream. She could hear the mother's voice, trying to be soothing, but tinged with panic as she spoke to the boy, trying to keep him still.

The minutes ticked by. Alice felt as if an eternity had passed. Where was Bruce? The question played over and over in her mind. Where was he? Her arms ached from pressing down for so long, but she didn't dare to pass the job over to the father. She couldn't. She just held on and waited.

She heard a clatter on the stairs and her heart leapt, just as the boy slowly went limp in his mother's arms. She felt her stomach drop, but she kept holding pressure. Maybe he had just passed out, unconscious. That would probably be for the best, after all, when Bruce stitched him up it was going to hurt like hell. She'd seen it. She heard the door behind her fly open and the running footsteps, but she didn't let go, didn't dare to turn away. She could still save him. She could still save Jacob.

Everything around her was muffled, sights, sounds. She heard Bruce's voice but couldn't understand what he said. She heard the mother's wail as if it was coming from another room. She felt two hands trying to pull her away, but she resisted.

"No," she said, "No, I can do this, I can save him…"

"Alice."

Bruce's soft voice cut sharply through the fog that had clouded her mind. Alice looked around her, dazed. The mother still wailed, her sobs piercing the air as she lay over the body of her son. The father sat very still beside her. Alice allowed Bruce to gently tug her hands away from the blood soaked pile of shirts and pull her to her feet She stared down at her red-stained hand clasped in his as he led her outside. His hands were so much bigger than hers and for some reason that comforted her.

Bruce stopped at the bottom of the stairs and sat. Alice sat beside him. For a moment they just sat together, Alice still staring at her hand now tucked into both of Bruce's larger ones. It was sticky with blood. But not Jared's blood. Not this time.

Finally, Bruce spoke.

"I'm so sorry, Alice."

Alice looked up at him. He was staring at her in that intense way he had, which usually made her feel uncomfortable. But she didn't feel uncomfortable now. She didn't feel anything. She met his stare blankly. For the first time, Bruce was the one to drop his gaze.

"I tried to get here, I did everything I could."

His voice sounded desperate and Alice took pity on him. She squeezed his hand.

"I know," she whispered.

Bruce shook his head.

"I shouldn't have sent you here on your own. I'm sorry, Alice, I am so very sorry."

Alice glanced up the stairs, where the wails of the sobbing mother could just barely be heard over the noise of the busy street.

"Yeah. So am I."

They sat in silence for another moment. Then Alice spoke, almost without meaning to.

"It's my brother's birthday today."

She could sense Bruce staring at her, but she didn't meet his eyes. She just looked out into the street crowd, not really seeing them. She could still see his face, his smile, hear his childish giggle. She could also see his blank staring eyes, the odd angle of his tiny body. And the blood.

"How old is he?" Bruce asked.

Alice knew she should lie. It would be an easy lie, a lie of omission, not even really a lie at all. But her mouth was working without her brain's permission.

"He would have been fifteen," she said, "If he hadn't died ten years ago."

Bruce didn't say anything. He didn't say he was sorry, or that he knew how she felt, or any of the other bullshit that people say to make themselves feel better. What he did was grip her hand a little tighter in his own and pretend not to notice the tear that meandered down her cheek.

After several moments, Bruce spoke again.

"Come on."

He got to his feet, pulling Alice up with him. She stumbled a little and Bruce caught her arm to steady her. Her arms and her back ached, her legs trembled, and she was just so tired.

"Jesus," Bruce muttered, concern lining his face.

Alice waved away the look.

"I'm okay," she said, standing up straight though not without effort, "I think I'm just hungry. I haven't eaten since this morning."

He didn't look entirely convinced, but he didn't argue with her.

"Then let's get some food into you."

They made their way through the crowded streets, Bruce keeping a tight hold on Alice's hand. She followed him blindly, too tired to pay much attention to where they were going. She was too tired to do much of anything but put one foot in front of the other. They stopped at a street vendor, and Bruce got a couple boxes of something to eat. Alice wasn't sure what it was, but it smelled divine and she realized that she really was hungry.

The walk to Bruce's house was a blur that she barely remembered. She didn't even remember agreeing to go to Bruce's house, but it didn't really matter, she supposed. They stopped at the water pump at the end of the street and Alice washed her hands and splashed cold water on her face, which helped to wake her up a little. Bruce deposited her on his mattress, plopped a Styrofoam box in her lap and put a fork in her hand. He then sat cross-legged across from her with his own box of food, and watched her eat. She concentrated on bringing the food to her mouth for a while, but it felt like exhausting work. She ate about half the contents before she felt like she just couldn't lift one more mouthful.

She glanced outside. The sun was getting low in the sky already. How long had she been here? She had lost track of time. She closed the box and started to get up.

"I really should go," she said, "It's getting late."

Bruce was up much faster than Alice would have thought possible.

"I'd feel better if you waited for a while," he said, his voice low and soothing, "Just rest for a little bit. It's not that late yet."

Though she was tempted by his offer, Alice shook her head and forced herself to stay on her feet.

"No, I'm okay, I feel a lot better now. I really should go home and try to get some sleep, I have to work in the morning."

Bruce's eyes narrowed.

"At least let me make sure you get back alright."

Alice shook her head, smiling.

"Really, there's no need. I'm fine. I'll see you tomorrow."

Even though Bruce still looked like he might protest, Alice left. The air was hot and muggy, and wrapped around her like a felt blanket. It was hard to breathe it in, but she forced a deep breath anyway and headed in the general direction of her bed. It was a walk she'd made hundreds of times. She could probably do it in her sleep, something she had the feeling she was testing right now. She was just so tired.

The dusk slowly closed in around her as the walk dragged on, and street lights started to blink on erratically around her. Half asleep and running on autopilot, Alice didn't notice the man walk into her path until she actually bumped into him. She stumbled back and chuckled.

"Sorry, I'm sorry," she said, smiling and looking up.

The man was not smiling back. He just stared down at her with dark emotionless eyes. Alice had been so busy saving lives that she had almost forgotten what Death looked like. She had stared into the face of Death before and she recognized the feeling now, the certainty that the next breaths you took were going to be your last and then it would all be over. And now, just as she had so many other times, she let that feeling wash over her, relief rather than fear.

Someone cracked her over the back of the head. She hit the pavement and had time for one final thought.

_Finally_ _… I didn't even see it coming…_


	8. Chapter 8

_Alice_ _…_

She felt like she was floating, floating through the black. There was nothing holding her. She wanted to sink deeper into the darkness, but instead she was floating upward, toward a soft gentle voice that murmured in her ear.

_Alice_ _…_

_Alice_ _…_

"Alice?"

Her eyes fluttered open and Bruce's face hovered over her, his dark eyes intense and lined with concern. At first she couldn't figure out what he was doing. He shouldn't be here. She tried to turn her head to get a better look at him, but a dull pain thudded at the base of her skull and lights burst behind her eyelids as she squeezed them shut. That was when she knew she was still alive.

"Damn…" she whispered, but it wasn't because of the pain.

She felt Bruce's hand touch her face, smooth back her hair.

"Try not to move too much. You have a bad bump on the back of your head."

She could barely hear him through the pounding.

"God, why didn't they just kill me?"

She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth. Bruce stared down at her silently, and Alice had to fight the urge to squirm. She wanted to laugh off what she'd said, turn it into a joke about her head hurting, like she would have with anyone else. But she knew, even if she _could_ get a chuckle past the lump in her throat, Bruce wouldn't believe her. He knew what she'd meant. And he wouldn't forget it.

But for now, he didn't say anything. Instead he grabbed a bottle of water and very gently slid his hand under her neck, helping her to slowly lift her head. It hurt like hell and Alice could see bursts of light flashing in front of her eyes.

"Drink this. I don't want you dehydrating."

His voice was still quiet, but it had lost some of its softness. He didn't look her in the eye as he tipped the bottle to her lips and let her drink. She really was thirsty, but she tried not to gulp the water down or choke.

Suddenly she realized that the light she was seeing wasn't just from her pounding headache. Sunlight was streaming through the windows of Bruce's house. When Bruce took the water bottle away, she swore loudly and tried to sit up. Her vision swam and her head pounded and Bruce held her down with both hands on her shoulders. She tried to struggle, but she could barely breathe through the sharp pain that shot through her head and down her neck.

"Dammit get off of me, I have to get to work," she said, her words coming out slightly slurred.

"Alice, stop, you aren't working today," Bruce said soothingly.

"The hell I'm not, I'm already late!" she said, trying again to sit up and again failing miserably, "I was supposed to open the store, I should have been there hours ago."

"I already called the Takeris, they know all about it," Bruce said, still holding her shoulders down firmly, "Everything is fine."

Alice looked up at him, feeling hazy.

"You… You called them?"

Bruce smiled, just a spark of humor back in his face as he relaxed.

"Yes, I called them, the number was in your phone."

"They're okay?"

That wasn't really the question she was trying to ask, but she felt like she was talking through a haze.

"They're fine," he assured her. A little of the softness she'd first heard in his voice was slowly coming back. His fingers brush her temple, "And so are you. You have a concussion, a pretty bad one. I wasn't sure…"

He paused and pressed his lips together for a moment, his throat moving as he swallowed.

"I wasn't sure if you were going to wake up," he said, his voice hoarse.

Alice felt her stomach contract and she balked. She didn't want to hear that roughness in his voice. She turned away, the world swaying as she did, but she didn't care. She couldn't look at him. Why had she let this happen? She should have seen the warning signs. She knew better.

"They must have been in a hurry."

Bruce's voice had lost the edge and was now calm and direct. Alice glanced at him, her eyes squinted. Her head still hurt when she moved.

"What?"

"The muggers," he said, "Your bag is gone, but…" He pulled something out of his shirt pocket, "I found these in a crack on the sidewalk. They must have been in a hurry and missed them."

Nestled in the palm of his hand were her parents' wedding rings. When her fingers clasped around the two gold bands she felt a wave of relief flood through her. She gripped them tightly to her chest, breathing deeply.

"Thank you," she breathed softly.

Bruce nodded, but he stared down at his hands instead of looking at her. Alice could tell that he wanted to say something, but whatever it was, he was keeping it to himself.

"You should try to get some sleep," he said, "The worst should be over now."

She resisted the urge to scoff. The worst was never over. But she was tired, so she closed her eyes and slowly drifted off to sleep.

When she woke again, it was dark. It was raining again. Alice could hear it trickling through the leaves of the trees and pattering softly on the roof. She sat up slowly, testing herself. Her headache was gone and she didn't feel dizzy, but her neck was still sore.

She started to check her watch, and then realized she didn't have it. It was gone, along with her bag. The irony was, her muggers really hadn't gotten all that much. Her payday was the end of this week, so really all they'd gotten was a bag, a watch, and a recording of Tosca. She did mourn the loss of the opera though. She would have to see if she could find another copy for cheap.

She looked around in the gloom and saw Bruce lying on the floor in the corner of the room. He was using one of his duffle bags for a pillow, curled up on his side with an arm tucked under his head. Alice felt bad that he'd had to sleep on the floor. The mattress wasn't too comfortable, but she knew it had to be better than hard packed dirt. As quietly as she could, so she wouldn't wake him, she swung herself off the mattress and crouched on the floor, watching for any sign that he might have heard her. There was no change in his breathing. He never moved. Alice relaxed a little. A cool breeze blew through the house and Alice saw Bruce shiver and shift a bit. It must not have been quite so cool when he'd gone to sleep because he wasn't wearing a shirt. Slow and silent, Alice gathered up the thin green blanket that she had been using and padded softly to where Bruce lay.

She stood over him for a moment, just looking at him. Since that first night when he'd… changed, Alice had never seen him less than fully dressed. Even in the full heat of summer, when even Alice had wished she could strip down to her underwear, he had always worn shirt, pants, socks, shoes, sometimes even an old sports jacket. He said it made him feel more professional. So as she stood over him in the darkness, she took a moment to appreciate his lean torso, not muscled as she might have expected having seen his alter ego, but lean and defined under a layer of coarse dark hair.

That was when Alice realized that Bruce was handsome. This surprised her. She had never thought of a man as handsome in her life. Cute, hot, sexy, any of the other adjectives that she had used over the years to describe members of the opposite sex, none of them defined Bruce Banner in the slightest. But handsome… That word seemed to encompass everything about him, not just how he looked, but how he behaved, how he spoke, and who he was.

She knelt down next to him and carefully draped the thin blanket over his exposed skin. He stirred and sighed in his sleep. Alice reached out her fingers and brushed back one of his dark curls before she realized what she was doing and jerked back, scrambling to her feet. She glanced outside. The rain had slowed to only a drizzle now. If she hurried she might be able to make it to the hostel before it started up again.

She looked back down at Bruce, still sleeping soundly on the floor, the most relaxed she'd ever seen him. She could feel the tips of her fingers tingling where they'd brushed his face. And she knew she didn't want to be there when he woke up. She slipped out of the house and into the rain.

Something changed after that night. Alice knew it, but she never could exactly put her finger on it. As the days and weeks passed, the rain slowed and finally stopped. The humid air dried out, the temperatures lowered to a reasonable level, and Alice found herself comfortable for the first time since she'd come to Kolkata, which felt like a lifetime ago. Medical work remained steady, even increased as word of the doctor continued to spread.

Bruce was convinced that Alice's mugging had been a direct result of exhaustion. Less than a week after it happened, he quit his job at the shipping dock. Alice, of course, protested this move quite fervently, but Bruce wouldn't hear any argument about it.

"I have everything I need," he insisted, "And I need you to keep your job with the Takeris. The shop is our only link to these people."

Alice was reluctant, but she wasn't left much of a choice. Because Bruce was available full time, he was able to take care of most of the cases while Alice was at work. Alice started to feel like little more than a glorified secretary, taking information and making appointments, and only feeling really useful on her days off. It was awful.

But that wasn't really what had changed. The weather, her work, those things didn't bother her nearly as much as the thing that she could never quite put into words. She caught herself looking at Bruce sometimes, not really staring, just looking at him for no reason when she never would have before. She couldn't seem to unsee what she had seen the night she'd left his house in the rain, unknow what she knew now.

He really was handsome.

That bothered her. It bothered her that she hadn't seen it before, and it bothered her that she kept seeing it now, it even bothered her that it bothered her at all. It wasn't anything new. She'd worked with attractive men before, she'd even dated a bit when the mood struck her. So why was this bugging her?

"Have you ever been in love, Alice?"

The question came out of nowhere, on a cool night by the embers of a dying fire. It startled her and she stared at Bruce for a moment. He was smiling, but his eyes were intense. Alice looked away.

"No."

"Never?"

He sounded surprised. Alice shook her head.

"Nope, never. It's not really my thing."

There was a long pause.

"No," Bruce muttered, a strange, bitter edge to his voice, "I guess it wouldn't be."

Alice glanced back at him. He was staring off into the night, a hard edge to his jaw. She wondered what he meant by that. She decided to ask him something else instead.

"What about you?" He turned his focus back to her, "Have you ever been in love?"

His face softened, the ghost of smile on his lips.

"Yes. I have."

Alice wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees, staring at him over the firelight. It flickered over his face, giving a glow to his smile.

"What was she like?"

She watched as Bruce gathered his thoughts.

"She's a scientist," he said, "A biologist actually, brilliant, respected, fiery, and stubborn as hell."

"And pretty of course," Alice said.

Bruce looked up at her and smirked.

"Oh naturally, she's gorgeous."

Alice smiled, "Sounds like a match made in heaven. What happened?"

The smile faded from his face and his eyes dropped to a patch of grass he was plucking at.

"I did."

Alice pressed her cheek to her knee.

"What do you mean?"

Bruce paused, collecting his thoughts again. Alice waited patiently. She hadn't meant to go this far, but it was too late to turn back now.

"We were working together on a project, a serum for the government. I thought it was going to keep people safe," He clenched his fists briefly in the grass, then relaxed, "I know better now."

Alice watched him carefully, captivated by the emotions that flickered across his face as he spoke.

"Being the cocky son of a bitch that I am, I tested it on myself. And when the gamma radiation hit my system…"

He glanced up and smiled bitterly.

"Well, you've seen what happened next."

Alice felt a lump of terror in her throat.

"Did you…? Did she…?"

Bruce dropped his eyes again.

"No, but she got hurt pretty badly. I don't even remember what happened, it was all a blur. And when it was over, when I saw what I'd done, I just left. I didn't want to worry about hurting her again and, maybe even more importantly, I didn't want the government getting hold of whatever was inside me. So I disappeared."

There was a pause.

"Have you seen her?" Alice asked, "Since the accident?"

Bruce smiled vaguely.

"Once. I went back, looking for a cure," He looked up at her, "Only there is no cure. This is who I am now, who I'll always be. And this..." Bruce's eyes lingered on the broken house, the dying fire, the slums in the distance, "This is my life. But it isn't hers. She would have come with me, if I'd asked her. But I didn't, because this isn't who she is. It's who I am. And those two things will never be the same again."

He didn't sound bitter or angry, only resigned and a little sad. Alice stared across the fire at Bruce as she realized, all over again, that there were layers and depths to him that she might never uncover, things she might never know that had shaped him, not just into the monster, but into the _man_ he was. And the glimpses that she got made her question everything in her own life. She wasn't sure how she felt about that. She wasn't really sure how she felt about anything anymore. And that was more frightening than any green science experiment.

Once again Bruce caught her off guard.

"Tell me a secret, Alice."

She felt her stomach twist and she jerked up, staring at him, terrified. He was looking at her over the fire glow with a determined set to his face.

"You know my biggest secret, the thing I've been working for years to keep hidden from everyone. And I feel like I know next to nothing about you. I don't know where you come from, the people you love, what made you who you are…"

"Does it matter?" The panic building in her throat made her words harsh and short, "You know me now. Why does it matter where I come from?"

"I'm just trying to understand you," he said, his voice soft, but she could hear the edge in it, the patience ebbing.

"Maybe I don't want you to understand me!" Alice said, her voice rising as her panic bubbled over, "I never asked to be the keeper of your secrets, I never asked you to tell me your life story, why do you need to know mine?"

"I need to know why you wish they'd killed you!"

Her heart stopped. She stared across the fire at Bruce, his face twisted with emotion that he was obviously trying to keep in check, eyes closed in concentration, breathing deep and even. She knew exactly what he was talking about, but she asked anyway, trying to give herself time to think.

"What do you mean?"

Bruce opened his eyes and she could see his impatience burning there. But he answered her anyway.

"When you were mugged, and I brought you here, you said, 'Why didn't they just kill me?'. Why did you say that, Alice? I need to know."

Alice stared at him across the fire while a thousand lies that she'd told a thousand times whirled through her mind. She could make any one of them convincing, she'd worked hard at it for years. But something stopped her. Bruce was smart, the most brilliant man she'd ever known. What if he didn't believe her? Even worse, what if he _did_? Both thoughts equally terrified her and she didn't know why. So she did the only thing that she could do, the only thing she had left.

She scrambled to her feet and grabbed her bag from the tree branch where it hung, slinging it over her shoulder.

"Alice…" Bruce said, rolling smoothly to his feet. She could hear a tinge of fear in his voice and she almost stopped, but she pushed through it.

"I'm tired, I'm going to bed," she said, trying to keep her voice level.

"Alice, wait…"

He took a step toward her, but she swept past him, taking long strides down the dark street.

"Alice!"

He could have followed her, caught her and kept her there if he wanted. But he didn't. She could hear his voice fading behind her. He wouldn't make her do anything that she didn't want to. He was a good man, just like she'd said before. For once, she wished he wasn't.

When she'd made it out of the slums and she was sure that she wasn't being followed, she slid into a deserted alley, crouched against the wall, and cried.


	9. Chapter 9

Alice didn't see Bruce again for a long time. She couldn't see him. Every time she even thought about him, panic would well up inside her and she'd have to sit down and take deep breaths to keep from hyperventilating. She was terrified. It was ironic. She'd known for months about the creature that lurked under his skin, the destruction that was waiting to be unleashed, had seen what it could do and hadn't even blinked. And now, faced with the possibility of telling him her own secret, she was petrified.

Despite her refusal to see him, she still continued to work as his liaison to the people of Kolkata. After all, they still came to her for help and she couldn't turn them away. So she made appointments and texted patient information, but when he texted her back or tried to call her, she ignored him.

PATIENT PAID IN CURRY. NOT TOO SPICY. COME OVER?

COULD PROBABLY USE YOUR HELP ON THIS. MEET ME?

I'M OUT OF EXCUSES. JUST WOULD REALLY LIKE TO TALK TO YOU.

ALICE I'M SORRY. PLEASE ANSWER YOUR PHONE.

YOU CAN'T IGNORE ME FOREVER.

That last message came a couple of weeks after the night by the fire. And she still couldn't read it without feeling her chest constrict.

"Alice, are you alright?"

She snapped the phone shut and shoved it in her pocket. Ambi was staring at her, a stack of bills forgotten in her hand. Alice tried to smile, but she knew it was weak.

"Sure, I'm fine."

"You are so pale," Ambi said, reaching out to touch Alice's cheek with her slender fingers, "Are you sick? Maybe Dr. Banner…"

"I'm fine, Ambi!" Alice said, jerking away from the touch.

Ambi looked hurt and Alice immediately felt horrible.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice calmer, "I didn't mean to snap at you."

"It is okay," Ambi said, turning back to the money in the drawer, "I just worry about you."

"I know, but really, I'm fine," Alice said, trying to strengthen her smile, to look a bit more sincere.

Ambi did not look convinced and Alice felt her stomach drop. She was losing her touch. There had been a time when she would not have had to make these excuses, when her emotions hadn't lived so openly on her face, when her smiles had appeared genuine without any effort. It had been so easy. So why was it so difficult now?

Alice didn't hear from Bruce again. The days passed, a week went by, and no messages, no calls. If it weren't for news from the people who came to her for help, she might have thought that he had left Kolkata, disappeared as he had threatened to do so long ago. She knew this wasn't so, but the thought made her consider her own decision to stay in Kolkata for so long. She had been here almost a year, the longest that she had stayed in one place since she was sixteen. And she was starting to remember why she had never remained in one place for too long. She'd become emotionally invested, not just with Bruce, but the Takeris as well, something she had never allowed before. It was easy to maintain a certain distance from strangers, but one could only spend so much time with the same people before attachments were formed. And she knew that somehow she had far surpassed that limit. It was time to move on.

On a warm afternoon, as she was staring blankly into space thinking of how she would break the news to the Takeris, the bell above the door tinkled. She sat up and shifted her focus.

Bruce stood in the doorway. Alice felt her chest seize up, her heart stop beating, and she froze like a doe that had just seen a hunter take aim from his tree stand. Bruce didn't move either, only his eyes flickered over her, taking in her entire appearance in a glance. His face was unreadable. Alice had no idea what he was thinking when he looked at her. Without intending to, she noted the dark circles under his eyes and how tired it made him look. She wondered how much he was working and if he was sleeping, before she remembered it wasn't her problem.

As if to compensate for her lapse in control, she put on the stoniest expression she could muster.

"What are you doing here, Bruce?" she asked flatly.

He didn't even flinch and, though she didn't want to, Alice had to give him some credit for that. His eyes narrowed and his words were clipped short.

"Well, you didn't give me much of a choice. You wouldn't answer your phone."

"Did it occur to you that there might be a reason for that?" Alice snipped, "Look Bruce, nothing personal, I just…"

Bruce held out a hand to stop her.

"I know," he said, his voice softer now, apologetic, "Alice, I know, and I'm sorry, I really am. We don't have to talk about anything. I know better than anyone what it is to keep secrets and what it means to give them up. I've been keeping secrets my entire life. They aren't things that you bargain with and I shouldn't have tried to pry them out of you like that. You aren't obligated to tell me anything. Sharing my life with you, that's my decision and it has nothing to do with what you share with me. And I'm so sorry that I tried to use that, Alice, I'm so, _so_ sorry, and I swear to you that it will never happen again."

She wanted to believe him. She wanted to forgive him. But she knew that what he was saying, what he was promising, wasn't possible. No matter what he said, those questions and doubts would always hang over them. She couldn't bring herself to share with him the way he wanted her to. It was like a dark cloud of inequality, of distrust. That was what happened when you allowed yourself to get emotionally involved. And she had to admit, she was definitely emotionally involved with Bruce, whether she had meant for it to happen or not.

"Bruce…"

What she wanted to say was how sorry she was that she had allowed this to continue, that she forgave him, that she had never meant for this to happen.

Instead, what came out was, "I'm leaving Kolkata."

It was the only solution. Because if she stayed, she wouldn't be able to stay away. And if he learned the truth of who she was, what she believed, and how she felt, it would ruin everything. It was just a matter of time. And if it was all the same, she would rather be the one to do the leaving.

Bruce's face went slack for a moment. Then he hardened it quickly.

"When?"

She didn't know when she was leaving. She'd only made the decision final a few seconds ago.

"I… I don't know. Soon. I've been thinking about it for a while now. I haven't even told the Takeris."

Bruce nodded, but she could see his mind working, turning over the information.

"Holi is tomorrow," he said finally.

The sudden shift in conversation startled her and she had to regroup.

"Yeah," she said, "Yeah, we're closing the shop."

Bruce's face lit up as a thought grabbed hold of him.

"Spend the day with me."

Alice just stared at him for a minute. She couldn't seem to make her voice work.

"Before you decide," Bruce said, taking a step closer, "Before you do anything, just spend Holi with me."

"I… I don't…" Alice stuttered, but she still couldn't seem to get any proper sentences to come out.

Bruce's jaw was set with determination. He had the same look on his face that he got when there was a particularly difficult patient in front of him.

"Come on," he said, the hint of a smile on his lips, "It'll be fun. Holi is all about new beginnings. What better day to make the decision to start over?"

She knew that she shouldn't. It was a bad idea. She'd already made the decision, she was leaving, why drag out the inevitable? It was pointless.

But when she looked at Bruce the only thing she could think to say was, "Okay."

He smiled at her tentatively. Despite herself, Alice smiled back.

"Okay," she said again, with a little more confidence this time.

There was a pause.

"Oh!" Bruce exclaimed, and as if he'd just remembered he was holding it, he pulled a garland of little white flowers from behind his back and handed it to her with a shrug, "I saw these on the way here, and thought flowers couldn't hurt, right?"

Alice's breath caught in her throat as she reached out and took the flowers. The soothing scent of jasmine filled her nose and she breathed deep.

"Thank you," she said softly.

The doorbell tinkled and Alice jumped. It was Halim. He stood in the doorway for a moment, his eyes flicking back and forth between Bruce and Alice. Then he smiled so cheekily that Alice felt herself blush. After the two men exchanged a handshake and a few pleasantries, Bruce turned to leave, but paused at the door, turning back and pointing at Alice.

"Don't you dare stand me up."

Alice could feel Halim's eyes on her, but she answered as nonchalantly as she could.

"I wouldn't dream of it."

Bruce grinned and left. Halim began to count out the money, but he kept stealing sly glances in her direction until Alice couldn't handle it anymore.

"What?" she snapped, but her voice was much more pleasant than she had really meant for it to be.

Halim smiled and turned back to the money.

"Ambi will be pleased that you have made friends with the doctor again. She worries about you."

"Well, she shouldn't," Alice said, crossing her arms over her chest, "I'm just fine."

Halim nodded.

"Of course, you are."

He finished counting the drawer and Alice grabbed her bag and slung it over her shoulder. She tried to get the garland of jasmine into her bag inconspicuously, but Halim spotted it.

"Oh no, you should wear it!" he said, taking it from her hand and placing it on her head, arranging the tiny white flowers delicately.

The scent filled her nose and calmed her erratically beating heart. She suddenly felt as if everything was going to work itself out. It wasn't a feeling she was used to, but she certainly didn't mind it.

"There," Halim said, stepping back and surveying his work, "Now you are beautiful."

Alice grinned.

"You mean I wasn't beautiful before?"

Halim was unfazed.

"You were pretty before. Beautiful is about how you feel inside. Now you are beautiful."

Alice was struck with so much emotion that she actually thought about hugging him, but she resisted. She was leaving soon.

"Thank you, Halim," she said instead.

He smiled.

"Have a good day tomorrow, Miss Ripley." He said.

Alice left, and though the scent of the flowers remained, the calm certainty had disappeared.


	10. Chapter 10

Alice had been looking forward to Holi for weeks. She'd heard about the festival, seen pictures of the colors and the energy that seemed to pour out of every nook and cranny of the city, but she was eager to experience it for herself. So despite her misgivings about spending the day with Bruce, she woke up early and excited. She had bought some colored powders a few days before, and as she was packing them into her bag, a certain one caught her eye. She turned the packet over in her hand, considering the implications of the idea that was nudging its way to the forefront of her mind. A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. She put the packet in a side pocket of her bag, in easy reach, and then headed out.

By the time she made it to Bruce's house, she was already covered in bright blue powder. A child on the street had tagged her and run off before she could retaliate. She was grinning widely when she stepped through the doorway, but Bruce had his back to her and apparently hadn't heard her come in. She clutched the packet of color behind her back, and spoke calmly and evenly.

"Bruce."

He turned and took in her distinctly blue appearance with a raised eyebrow.

"I see you got started without me."

She smiled and took a few steps closer.

"Yep. It was a vicious attack, came out of nowhere. Sort of like…"

She whipped the packet out from behind her back and dumped the contents over his head. Bright green powder exploded into the air and covered Bruce from his curly hair to his shoulders. It stuck to everything, including Alice, but the look of dumbfounded shock on Bruce's face made the entire thing worth it. She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. Slowly, Bruce reached up and smeared a hand over his face, leaving streaks of bare skin in the green pigment. He rubbed his fingers together, and then smirked at Alice.

"Nice," he said, "Very nice."

"I think its your color," she said, reaching out and ruffling a hand through his hair, sending a puff of green dust into the air.

"You think so, do you?"

He was grinning broadly and Alice allowed herself a giggle. He shook his head, sending even more powder flying.

"Come on," he said, "Let's go."

The city was just starting to fully wake and people were pouring out of their homes. Laughter and color filled the air and before they knew it, Alice and Bruce were both soaking wet and covered in all the colors of the rainbow. As the streets filled with people, Bruce reached out and took Alice's hand so they wouldn't lose one another in the crowds. Once again, she noticed how much bigger his hands were than hers. He enveloped her fingers and held on tightly, and she remembered how safe he'd made her feel, just by holding her hand.

They wandered the streets of Kolkata, mingling with the crowds, eating from street vendors, never stopping for very long. There was so much to see, Alice felt overwhelmed by it. She thought that if she stayed a thousand lifetimes in Kolkata, she would never see all there was to see of the Holi celebrations. There was music being blasted through speakers into the streets, people laughing and dancing through colors that seemed to appear out of nowhere. The crowds pressed in on them in a happy throng and Alice gripped Bruce's arm, pulling herself close to his side, not wanting to lose him in the crowds, but also not wanting to miss anything, trying to soak the color and the energy in through her eyes, her nose, her skin. Bruce looked down at her and smiled. Alice was struck again by how handsome he was, even slathered in colored mud and drenched to the bone. She had never seen him look so happy. She smiled back.

When the sky began to darken, Alice was surprised. The day had whirled by in an explosion of color, and not once had she felt the dark cloud that she had been expecting to hang over them. As they walked through the streets, watching groups of people pile up wood and scraps for bonfires, Alice found herself walking a little closer to Bruce, gripping his hand a little tighter, hoping against everything she knew to be true that she could hold on to this day for just a little while longer.

When the sun set the bonfires leapt into the sky, flames dancing and flickering in the cool evening. The two of them sat on the sidewalk near one of the fires and for a few minutes they just stared into it. Bruce had still not let go of her hand and Alice hadn't tried to take it away. She didn't want to let go of Bruce's hand. She didn't want to let go of Bruce.

As she stared into the fire she felt something deep inside her shift, a belief that until now had been steady and unchanging. It was the belief that her life was an island, harsh, unforgiving, and circled by an impassable reef. She had built this reef to protect anyone who might try to settle the island and change it into a habitable environment, to keep others safe by turning them away. But now, for the first time, someone was trying to breech the reef that Alice didn't want to turn away. But if she let Bruce through the wall, if she introduced him to the lonely island that was her life and it went badly, she didn't know if she would be able to recover.

" _Holi is all about new beginnings_ _…"_

She remembered the words Bruce had said yesterday, and now she thought he might be right. She felt like her life was ending tonight and something else was starting, something new, something bigger, and something she couldn't control. It was frightening. This life was all she'd ever known. Was she really ready to let that go, to start over? Would she lose herself? She didn't think she could bear that. No matter what happened, she was who she was. Nothing, not even a new life, would change that. The only question that remained was whether or not her life would still be a deserted island when it was over.

"I grew up in Oklahoma."

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. She felt Bruce tense beside her, but she didn't look at him, didn't dare. She just stared into the fire and let the words keep pouring out.

"My parents had a little farm about an hour outside of Tulsa. My father was an auto mechanic, but he wanted more than anything to be self-sufficient, to not have to rely on anyone else. We had a couple of cows, some chickens and a huge garden. My mother had this green thumb, and every year she tried to grow something new. When I was little I spent my summers out in the garden with her, and when my brother was born, I sort of took over for a while, but I wasn't nearly as good with it as she was. She was a master."

Alice could see her mother's round, freckled face shaded from the sun by her favorite straw hat, her father grinning with an oil smudge across his forehead where he'd wiped sweat from his brow. Alice reached up and gripped the wedding rings dangling from her neck, but she kept talking.

"My brother was a snot nosed little kid. My parents hadn't planned on him, but when he was born it was like something that had been missing in our family finally fell into place. I didn't get that until later, but I knew that we were happy, happier than we had ever been, even when the little monster drove me crazy."

She paused, not sure if she could keep going. Faces and voices and laughter whirled through her memory and a little voice in her head told her she could stop now, she didn't have to go on. But that voice was an echo of a past life, something that was over and done with now. Something stronger urged her on.

"The summer I turned fifteen was a crazy time. I was going through this phase where all I wanted was to stay inside or hang out with my friends. I didn't want to go camping with my family, or hang out in the garden, or help dad with the new calf. That was lame. My whole family was lame, as far as I was concerned. So I was in my room, staring up at the ceiling and thinking about how awful my life was, when I heard the front door bang open. There were some raised voices, but no one was talking to me, so I ignored it… until there was a gun shot."

Alice felt like her lungs might collapse when she spoke those words. She stopped for a moment and closed her eyes, trying to breathe, but in the darkness behind her eyelids she was fifteen again, in her bedroom, hearing that shot and her mother's screams.

"My mother kept screaming and screaming, and I could hear Jacob crying and screaming, and I… I was so scared. I got in my closet and shut the door, curled up in a corner in the dark. I could hear a man's voice, but it wasn't my father, it was another man and he kept yelling at Jacob to just shut up, shut the hell up, and I kept wishing that he would, that he would just stop screaming. And then there were two more shots and after that it was quiet, so quiet I could hear myself breathing and I put a hand over my mouth to keep from breathing so loud."

She could feel the dark heat of the closet pressing in on her, the suffocating fear that froze her.

"I was too scared to move, too scared to do anything for a long time. I don't know how long I was in that closet, but it must have been hours because when I was finally able to make myself move again, it was dark outside. But it was a full moon that night. Moonlight came through the open front door. And I saw…"

Her throat closed up. She could feel the cold metal of the rings cutting into her palm. She relaxed her grip and breathed in through her nose a few times before she started again.

"The police said the guy was crazy when they caught him. He was just a few miles up the road, some drifter that happened to pass through our part of the world when he had some sort of schizophrenic breakdown. He thought my family were monsters. So he shot them. He thought he was saving the world."

There was a pause. Alice looked at Bruce for the first time since she'd started to speak. He was watching her closely, waiting to hear what else she might say. But she didn't see any judgment in his eyes, only kindness and patience. Clearly, he was missing her point and she could feel the beginning of frustration start to build up inside her.

"You asked me why I wished they'd killed me. This is why! I was supposed to die ten years ago. If I hadn't been such a coward, or if I had been helping Mom with the laundry, or Dad with the feed, or playing with Jacob, like I should have been, I would have died right there with them. I hid when I should have tried to _do_ something! So I'm waiting for it to catch up with me. I've been waiting my whole life, waiting to die, and sometimes I get so _tired_ of waiting, but when it finally happens I won't leave anyone behind to hurt the way I hurt! I can't do that, I just can't…"

She dropped her eyes and tried to catch her breath, her grip on her parent's wedding rings pressing the metal deep into her palm, the pinching pain grounding her in the present. She took deep breaths, in through her nose, out through her mouth, and waited for Bruce to speak.

When he finally did, it was slowly and precisely.

"Why did you try to save me, Alice?"

Alice was startled by the simplicity of the question.

"Well, because… I mean, you're important. You saved Mika's life, you've saved a lot of lives…"

"So have you."

Alice paused. Then the weight of her disappointment hit her like a sack of bricks to the gut. He was comparing her to him. He didn't understand. She should have known that he wouldn't understand. She pulled her knees up to her chest and tried to make herself as small as possible. She just wanted to crawl into a hole. She should never have told him this…

"I'm not suicidal, Bruce," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"I know."

His quick, confident response made her look up, surprised. He was looking down at her calmly, like he was trying to puzzle through her.

"I know you aren't. If you wanted to kill yourself, you would have done it already, I think. I'm sure you've had plenty of opportunity. But that doesn't mean you get to go around throwing yourself in Death's general direction and pretending that doesn't matter to anyone because it does."

"I tried!" Alice said, her voice desperate with the guilt she felt, "I tried to stay isolated, unattached! Why do you think I've moved around so much? I haven't stopped moving since I was sixteen! The only reason I've stayed here this long is because I thought…"

She swallowed her words, but it was too late.

"Because you thought I might solve your problem for you," he said.

He wasn't angry, or upset. His facial expression didn't change. He still looked like he was trying to work through a puzzle, just listening and working through everything she was saying, everything that had happened since they'd met. He shook his head and Alice was surprised to see a smile tugging at his lips.

"Well, I guess that explains a lot, following me to my house, spying on me. I bet you could smell crazy on me a mile away."

"I never thought you were crazy," Alice said, "Just dangerous."

"I'm still dangerous, you know," he said, a playful smirk on his face.

"I know," she said, "It just doesn't matter anymore."

The words surprised Alice almost as much as she could tell they surprised Bruce. But it was true. She'd stopped thinking of Bruce as dangerous a long time ago. She knew it in the back of her head, the way she knew that his hair was curly and his eyes were brown, but it just… didn't matter. There was so much more to him than that, and that was so much more important.

Bruce's mind was working again. Alice could see it, the wheels turning, his eyes flicking back and forth across her face. She would have felt uncomfortable under his scrutiny, but she had already exposed everything to him. She had nothing else to hide.

"You know," he said, finally, "You're the only reason I'm still here too."

Alice managed a small smile.

"That's not true. All the people you help, they need you."

"And I wouldn't have helped a single soul if it weren't for you," he insisted, "When I came here, I was alone and depressed and terrified of myself. I couldn't see past who I'd become, the things I'd done, the damage I'd caused. I was just trying to keep my head down, to stay out of the way. And then I met you."

Alice sighed, really failing to see the point in any of this.

"Yeah, I know, I stalked you."

Bruce laughed.

"No, no before the stalking. The first time I met you, when you were crying in the shop. I'd been looking through you for weeks, but that was the first time I really _saw_ you. It was the first time I'd really seen anyone in years."

Alice stared at him. She had never really thought about that. In her mind, their entire relationship was centered around the night Bruce had come home late and revealed his big secret. The day he'd seen her cry had simply been a means to that end. She had never considered that it might hold any more significance for him. Bruce smiled at her.

"That night, saving Mika, that was the beginning of the end for me. I couldn't stop seeing. I saw people dying all around me when I could have saved them. And I wanted to. I wanted so much to end the suffering I saw every day. But I was trapped, shackled with the knowledge that everything I touched, I destroyed. I couldn't take that chance. And then you showed up again. And even though I tried to push you away, you showed up again. And again, and again. And every time I saw you moving in the shadows, it reminded me how helpless I was to save anyone. I couldn't even keep you away, keep you safe. I thought that eventually you would give it up. But you never did. And I was so tired of running. So, one night, I got drunk, waited until I thought you'd be gone, and…"

He shrugged.

"Well you know what happened then."

Alice didn't know what to say. None of this had ever occurred to her. She had never dreamed that she might have been the cause of Bruce's downward spiral.

"I'm not telling you this to make you feel guilty," Bruce said, as if reading her mind, "I'm telling you so that you can understand a little better how much it meant for me to agree to work with you. You were the first person in a long time that hadn't backed down from who I really was, and you were still in one piece. If I believed in signs, that would have been one for me. If you could come so close to the Other Guy and come away unscathed and unafraid, then maybe there was a chance, a chance for me to help people without destroying them. I started to find myself again, Alice. I had spent so much of my time and energy focusing on the Other Guy, that I had forgotten there was anything else. You reminded me that even though I've changed, I'm still _me_ , and I'm not a destructive monster. I'm a scientist. I started out wanting to help people and now I'm finally doing exactly that."

He took both her hands in his and held them tightly. His eyes were so intense that she thought she might catch fire.

"You saved my life, Alice," he said softly, "The Hulk kept me breathing, but you saved my life."

Alice didn't know what to say. It was so much that she had never considered before.

"I just want you to know that everything that you are, your past, what you believe, I would never try to change any of it."

Alice felt a jolt of shock that must have shown on her face. Bruce grinned.

"Alice, I like you exactly the way you are! What you've been through, what you believe, has made you into the kind of person that would follow home a dangerous man and hide in a tree outside his house. It made you brave enough to try to save someone so lost and broken that he couldn't see the meaning in his own life. It made you strong enough to withstand the monster, to stay when anyone else would've run."

He reached up and brushed her cheek with his finger tips.

"There is nothing about you that I would ever want to change, Alice. So, if you still feel like you need to run, that's okay. Because no matter how far or how long you run, you will always be the woman who helped make my life worth living again. That will never change. So I'm not going to try to make you stay. But, Alice…"

He closed his eyes, and Alice saw anxiousness in the lines of his face.

"Alice, please stay," he whispered.

She stared at him for a long time, his face glowing in the dying firelight. His hand enveloped hers in warmth and she felt safe. She didn't feel threatened or misunderstood or outcast. For the first time, she believed that someone _got it,_ accepted who she was without question. Slowly, she reached up and gripped her parents' rings again, but the metal in her palm didn't give her the same reassurance that it had before. She felt that sense of newness again, that overwhelming feeling of an old life ending and another growing out of the ashes. It was scary. She had been alone and cut off for so long, she didn't know if she knew how to live any other way. But she thought that now, maybe, she could try.

"Okay."

She opened her hand and the two gold bands dropped to her chest, clinked once, and were still.


	11. Chapter 11

The next day she had doubts about her decision. And every day after, she woke up with doubts. It wasn't easy, trying to live a new life, especially when the habits of your old one were so easy to slip into. On the surface, not much had changed. She still worked at the Takeris' store. She still acted as doctor's secretary for Bruce, though she assisted more now, as often as possible. Bruce no longer chided her about her work habits, but if she started to look tired, he would ask her about it and she would have to remember to answer honestly. Trust, it turned out, was a harder habit to keep than to break.

On the surface, not much about her relationship with Bruce changed either. He seemed to be making a point not to treat her any differently than he had before, even perhaps pulling away just a bit. This confused her. Because despite his obvious attempts to keep their relationship neutral, she felt more bonded to him than she had to any other living soul. The trust that they shared, his big green secret and her guilt-stained past, was something she had never had before. But, not knowing any other way, she was forced to follow his example. So their relationship continued as it ever had, but with a higher level of trust and a deeper sense of connection that Alice just couldn't seem to get a handle on.

The short Indian spring bloomed into a swelteringly humid summer, and with it came sickness. Dehydration and heat exhaustion were common, and an outbreak of malaria hit the slums especially hard. Bruce and Alice found themselves working almost around the clock and Alice learned more than she ever wanted to know about the disease. The Takeris started giving her a few less shifts at the store just so she could get some sleep, but she still felt overwhelmed and she knew Bruce felt it too. They were running out of medicine and soon there would be little they could do to help the growing number of people coming to them. There was so much sickness and they were only two people.

One unusually cool night, they were working a block of buildings on the west side, checking on a family whose two children were very sick. Bruce had just finished his examination and was washing his hands while Alice pressed cool clean cloths to their foreheads, trying to bring down their raging fevers. There was a clatter on the stairs and Alice turned toward the noise. A little girl peered up through the railing, her eyes wide and shining with unshed tears. The mother of the sick children started chastising her in rapid Hindi, but the girl didn't budge. Her big, sad eyes found Bruce and she started chattering in a high-pitched, desperate voice.

"Slow down," Bruce said, holding out his hand, his face and voice soothing, "Tell me what's wrong."

The little girl suddenly looked self-conscious and a little lost. Alice felt something tickle her senses.

"Mi baba," she said,'my father'.

She paused. Alice felt that tickle again, a tinge of something not quite right. She turned and tried to catch Bruce's eye, but his attention was fixed on the girl. He crouched to be eye level with her and pointed to the beds where Alice sat.

"Like them?" he asked kindly. For the first time, Alice wished he was not so kind.

The little girl nodded and the tears were back in her eyes.

"Please," she said, in English now, and held out her little fist, a few bills crumpled in her fingers.

Bruce was on his feet and moving before Alice could react. He had his bag and was hurrying down the stairs when she caught up to him.

"Bruce, wait…" she said, following him down the stairs.

"Stay here and try to get their fevers down," Bruce said, not even looking back at her, "I'll be back as soon as I can."

"But Bruce, I don't…"

But Bruce wasn't listening anymore. He hit the bottom of the stairs and the little girl took off jogging down the street, Bruce hot on her heels. Alice hesitated, running a hand through her hair, pacing on the sidewalk. She didn't like it. Something was wrong about this, she wasn't sure what, but she could feel it in her gut. And if there was one thing she had always been able to trust it was her own instincts.

She thought about the little girls in the beds upstairs for the briefest of seconds.

"God damn it," she muttered under her breath, and then took off running in the direction Bruce had disappeared.

Keeping up wasn't easy. Alice was only able to catch brief glimpses of Bruce as they wove through the crowd, but she kept pace as they made their way further and further out of the city. The crowds thinned and the buildings grew further and further apart. They were nearing the opposite edge of the slums, a place Alice had never been before. She tried to catch up with Bruce...

Someone grabbed her from behind, and before she could scream a gloved hand clamped over her mouth. She managed to catch a glimpse of Bruce and the girl running into an abandoned building before she was pulled into a clump of bushes out of sight.

"What the hell is she doing here?" she heard someone whisper harshly. English, American, male. It was hard to see in the dark, but the black uniforms and organized, harsh voices made her guess military.

"Don't know, she came out of nowhere. We figured she'd stay with the others."

A different voice this time, but the same rough American English. Definitely military.

"Fuck me. Well, just keep her quiet, we don't need another Culver incident."

Alice sat very still in the dirt and tried to peek through the scrub. She could hear the static of radios and voices, but it was difficult to make out what was being said. She heard a distinctly female voice over the radio. It sounded like she was speaking English, but with just a hint of accent that was unfamiliar to Alice. Through the bare branches of the brush she could just make out shapes moving inside the house. And that was when the full realization of the situation hit her. These men were here for Bruce.

She fought down panic and forced herself to remain very still. If they were after Bruce, it was unlikely that they were terribly concerned with her well being. From the attitude of the one that seemed in charge, it would be much easier for everyone if she simply wasn't there. They could kill her.

As that thought flitted through her mind, she felt the old familiar relief wash over her. This could be it. They could kill her and it would all be over. But just as quickly as the wave of sensation broke over her, she saw Bruce's face, like it was embedded on the backs of her eyelids, and she heard his voice as if he were whispering in her ear.

" _You helped make my life worth living_ _…"_

There was a loud crash and a raised voice inside the house. Bruce's voice.

"We have a situation!" the commanding voice rasped, "Move!"

The whole area surrounding the house surged forward. Alice could see the black barrels of guns lunging toward the house.

"Stop!" she managed to choke out before another gloved hand clamped itself over her mouth, yanking her back.

"What the hell, Curtis?" the voice in command hissed.

But it was too late. There was only a second's pause and then Alice heard Bruce on the radio.

"Natasha, if anything has been done to her, this will cease to be a matter of negotiation."

His voice was low and dangerous, but it carried over the deathly silence of the still night air. There was a pause, and then a crackle of static over the radios.

"Let her in."

The commander, who Alice could now see was a large man with a square face and sharp eyes, put a hand to his ear.

"Ma'am, I don't believe that would be…"

"God damn it, Hurley, that is an order!"

The woman's voice was sharp and unforgiving. It scared Alice almost as much as Bruce's voice. Apparently it scared the commander too because he gave a nod to his man, Curtis, and Alice found herself stumbling to her feet and rushing inside.

She paused only long enough to assess the situation. A slight red-headed woman in a long skirt was pointing a gun at Bruce's head. Bruce had his eyes fixed on the woman, but he reached his hand out to Alice as she came in. She hurried over and took it, letting him pull her in close to his side. She narrowed her eyes at the other woman, Natasha.

"Really? A handgun? You realize that's like trying to shoot down a nuclear missile with a Nerf dart, right?"

The frighteningly glazed look that had been in Natasha's eyes started to recede. She lowered the gun.

"Are you okay?" Bruce asked, his eyes still fixed on Natasha.

"I'm fine," Alice said, turning to look up at him, "Are _you_ okay?"

Bruce turned his eyes down to her and smirked.

"Aren't I the nuclear bomb in this metaphor? I think I'm fine. I thought I told you to wait with the kids?"

Alice shrugged.

"Yeah, well, I didn't like that girl."

"What, the sweet one with the big, sad eyes and the handful of cash?" Bruce said, quirking an eyebrow.

"Yep, didn't like her."

Bruce rolled his eyes.

"Of course you didn't."

"Bruce, what's going on?" Alice asked, but the question was really directed toward Natasha, "Who are you?"

The gun had disappeared and the other woman now stood with her hands behind her back, feet slightly apart. Parade rest. She was military too.

"My name is Natasha Romanoff. I'm an agent with a government organization known as SHIELD."

Alice heard government organization and she squeezed Bruce's hand tightly.

"We've come to ask for Dr. Banner's help in tracking something for us."

"Tracking something?" Alice asked, looking up at Bruce.

"It's emitting gamma radiation," Bruce explained.

"So what, do they expect you to sniff it out like a bloodhound? Is that even possible?"

Alice felt a shudder of disgust when she thought about using him that way, and it showed in her voice and her face. Bruce smiled at her and squeezed her hand.

"No," he said gently, "Remember, I was an expert in gamma radiation before the accident. I'm still the leader in my field."

"We need his expertise to track the low level radiation, help us come up with new ideas," Natasha said.

"So says _you_ ," Alice quipped, her eyes narrowed. Natasha sounded sincere, but the woman had come here with an army and that didn't exactly scream 'Trust me!'.

A blue light on the table caught Alice's eye. It was coming from a cell phone and she picked it up. There was a picture of a glowing cube on the tiny screen.

"Is this it?" she asked, "The thing you're trying to find?"

"It's called the Tesseract," Natasha said.

"It's pretty," Alice said, feeling at a loss and completely out of her element.

"It contains enough energy to blow our entire planet to dust," Natasha said as she took the phone from Alice's hand.

"And you lost it?" Alice snorted, "Some secret government agency you guys are."

Natasha didn't respond, but Alice had the satisfaction of seeing Bruce try to hide a smirk. She gripped his hand tight.

"If he's going, I'm coming too."

" _No_!" Bruce and Natasha both said simultaneously.

They glanced at each other. Natasha seemed content to let Bruce take the lead, so he turned to face Alice taking both her hands in his.

"I don't want you anywhere near this stuff," he said, "It's gonna be a horrible combination of dangerous and boring."

"You don't really think I'm just gonna let you take off with Agent Nerf Dart, do you?" Alice said, jerking her thumb toward Natasha, "That's how people never see each other again. I've seen spy movies, I know how this stuff works."

"I'll be done before you know it," Bruce said, though he sounded surprisingly unconvincing, "Besides the people here need your help…"

Natasha cleared her throat and they both looked at her.

"Actually, Miss Ripley, I'm afraid we're going to have to relocate you."

Alice felt her stomach drop and she immediately covered her nervousness with anger.

"Are you kidding me?" she shouted, "Why, what did _I_ do?"

Natasha stayed calm and matter of fact.

"You've been an associate of Dr. Banner's for over a year now. As a result, your information is logged into SHIELD's database, including location and background. We're not sure how much of that information has been compromised in this breach. It would be safer for _everyone_ -" Natasha gave Bruce a pointed look, "-if we relocated you."

"Wait, hold on," Alice said, her head swimming, "You mean, you've been keeping tabs on me? You read up on _me_?"

"We had to know who we were dealing with."

Alice wanted to slap the calm, collected look right off Natasha's pretty face, but she restrained herself. She took a couple of deep breaths and tried to remain calm.

"We're fully prepared to take you anywhere you might want to go," Natasha said, "We'll pay for room and board while the situation is being dealt with and when it's all over, you'll be free to do as you wish."

But Alice knew that wasn't really true. It would never be true again. She would never be able to go anywhere without feeling like someone was looking over her shoulder. She looked up at Bruce. He met her eyes with apologetic resignation. Was this what it was like for him? Every day, feeling as if someone in the background was pulling the strings of his life?

"This sucks," Alice said.

Bruce squeezed her hand.

"It'll be over soon," he said again, and again Alice just couldn't make herself believe him. She looked back at Natasha.

"I'm guessing it would be better for everyone if I went without fighting tooth and nail, right?"

Natasha gave her just a hint of smile. Alice felt like a cornered mouse making a deal with a hungry cat.

"That would be ideal, yes."

"Then I want some medical help for these people."

She could see that her request had thrown the agent off guard and she allowed herself a small twinge of satisfaction.

"We have a serious malaria outbreak in this city and there's not nearly enough medicine or people to go around. I want supplies and a team out here helping them. You give me your word, and I'll go wherever you want me to go."

Natasha gave Alice a considering look and, even though this woman scared the shit out of her, Alice met her eyes and held them steady. Finally, the red head nodded.

"Done," she said, putting a hand up to her ear, "We got 'em. Fuel up, we're in the air in an hour."

Natasha walked out, still speaking into her ear piece, leaving Alice and Bruce alone. She looked up and saw that he was smiling brightly at her. It lit up his whole face and Alice had to remind herself that she was angry with him. After all, he was taking off for the great unknown with a shady military organization, and she was just supposed to sit quietly and wait for him to show up again. What was she supposed to do, knit? She glared at him.

"What are you grinning at?"

"That was a good call, with the medicine." he said, "I wish I'd thought of it."

Alice smirked. She'd thought it was pretty clever herself, and she was glad that he approved.

"Well, since we're being jerked around against our will, someone needs to help these people."

She let go of Bruce's hand and crossed her arms over her chest, turning so her back was to the open door and she was facing Bruce straight on.

"Bruce, you don't have to do this," she whispered.

Bruce rolled his eyes.

"I think I do, Alice. They aren't giving me much of a choice."

"There's always a choice!" Alice hissed, "Especially for you! You could just jump out that back window and take off, never to be seen again, and there's nothing they could do to stop you. You've done it before."

All trace of Bruce's smile was gone now.

"That was different."

"How?" Alice demanded, "How was it different?"

"I didn't have you."

Alice froze, her heart in her throat. She swallowed to try to get it back where it belonged.

"I can't leave you with them," Bruce said, "Not without some assurance that you'd be safe. As long as they have me and I do what they say, you'll be taken care of. Without that…" He paused, and then shrugged, "There's no reason for them to protect you."

Alice opened her mouth to snap back some sort of retort, but Natasha walked back through the door.

"We're ready," she said, "Let's go."

The SHIELD men had gone to Bruce's house and Alice's hostel and gathered all their belongings. The bags were stacked on the landing strip when they arrived at the small airport. There was a small passenger plane and a helicopter, both already running when they arrived. Natasha got out of the back of the Jeep and headed for the helicopter, Alice and Bruce following behind her.

"Dr. Banner, you'll be riding with me in the helicopter; Miss Ripley, you'll be taking the jet!" Natasha called out over the noise of the engines, "It'll take you wherever you'd like to go!"

Alice glanced at the open door of the jet. There was a big man in a dark suit standing at the top of the stairs.

"That's Agent Thompson!" Natasha said, "He'll be making all the arrangements for you! Whatever you need, let him know!"

Alice adjusted the strap on her bag nervously. She didn't like this. A bodyguard? What was she supposed to do with Big Brother looking over her shoulder at all hours of the day? She felt awkward already.

"Hey!"

Alice tore her eyes from the jet and looked at Bruce. He was smiling, but she could see the anxiety in his eyes.

"It'll be okay," he said, "It'll all be over soon."

He kept saying that, and she wasn't sure if he was trying to convince her or himself, but either way he wasn't doing a very good job. She nodded anyway and smoothed down the lapels of his jacket, just to give her hands something to do. Their bags were being loaded into their respective aircraft. Bruce glanced over his shoulder at the helicopter, his hands clasping and unclasping, his feet shuffling under him. He was nervous, more nervous then she'd ever seen him. Alice suddenly forgot all of her own anger, her own nerves, her own feelings, and all she could think about was how hard this was for Bruce. It was a small space in that helicopter and they would be several hundred feet in the air. This was the last thing he wanted to do, the last place on earth he wanted to be, but he was doing it just to keep her safe. And that was all Alice wanted for him too. She just wanted him to be safe. She took his fidgeting hands in hers.

"Hey!" she said, raising her voice over the engine noise.

He looked down at her.

"Be careful!"

He smiled and this time a tiny bit of it seemed to reach his eyes, "Don't worry about me!"

"What else have I got to do?" she asked, smirking.

"Time to go, Doctor!" Natasha called.

Alice felt a knot tighten in her stomach and her grip on Bruce's hands tightened. She didn't want to let go. She didn't want him to go. Feeling desperate, and afraid, and knowing that this might be the last time she ever saw him again, Alice took his face in her hands and pressed her lips to his. It took only a moment for Bruce to put his arms around her and kiss her back. Alice could feel desperation in the strength of his arms pulling her close, trying to envelope her whole body the way his hand always enveloped hers. She clung to him, trying to give him something to hold on to when she was no longer with him. His touch had always made her feel safe. Now he clearly needed her to return the favor. She could only hope that this, as little as it was, would be enough. When Bruce finally pulled away, it felt like a part of her went with him.

Before either of them could say or do anything else, two armed men were on each side of him, leading him toward the helicopter. Alice watched them take him and bundle him into the back, his bag clutched to his chest. He looked so awkward and uneasy, not like the man she'd come to know at all. It made her chest ache. The blades of the helicopter began to whirl faster and slowly it started to lift off the ground, blowing dirt and debris into Alice's face. She shielded her eyes, but she kept her gaze fixed on Bruce. He glanced down at her and smiled weakly. Then the helicopter turned and he was gone. Alice stood and watched until it was indistinguishable from the night sky around her.

"Where too, ma'am?"

Agent Thompson had descended the stairs of the small plane and was now standing behind her, his hands behind his back, looking down at her with all the emotion and expression of a robot. Alice sighed.

"I don't know," she said, pinching the bridge of her nose and saying the first thing that came to mind, "Ever been to Germany?"

For a moment, she thought she saw Agent Thompson's eyebrow rise, but when she blinked it was gone.

"No ma'am," he said, his deep voice flat.

"Neither have I."

Desperate to feel like she was still in charge of something in her life, Alice strode toward the plane, passing up the agent without a glance back.

"Come on, Tommy, let's go on an adventure."

"It's Agent Thompson," He said as he caught up to her.

She felt a smile twitch at the corners of her lips. This might not be so bad after all.


	12. Chapter 12

They ended up in Munich, by a strange toss of a coin. It had been either Munich or Berlin, and Tommy (as Alice now insisted on "affectionately" calling him) had been no help with the decision, so in the end the Fates had decided in the form of heads. They landed in the early morning and were whisked to a hotel, where Alice promptly crawled under the covers and fell asleep.

When she woke it was well past noon. She sat up and let her groggy eyes come into focus. She was in a lavish suite with a king sized bed and far more amenities than were strictly necessary. She just sat there for a moment and stared around her, feeling very dirty. She hadn't even changed out of her clothes from the day before. She scrambled out of bed and headed for the shower. It was huge and she reveled in the hot water. She couldn't remember the last time she'd actually enjoyed a shower without the pressure of a line of people waiting outside the door.

She dressed quickly and rifled in her messenger bag for her phone, hoping Bruce had called. But she couldn't seem to find it. She upended the bag on the bed and sifted through the contents. No phone. She checked her pockets from the day before. No phone.

She was five seconds from dumping everything out of both her duffle bags just to be sure, when a knock echoed through the room. She paused, then she tiptoed to the door and peeked through the peephole. No one there. The knock sounded again. It was coming from the adjoining room door. She felt her shoulders sag. Of course she was in an adjoining room. She sighed and opened the door. Agent Thompson stood on the other side, looking pristine in his crisp black suit and military buzz cut.

"I heard some noise, Miss Ripley. Is everything alright?"

She ran a hand through her damp hair and tried to be civil.

"Yeah, I just can't find my phone."

"I'm afraid that had to be confiscated," he said brusquely.

Alice stopped with her hand in mid air and stared at him.

"What?"

"That phone signal was being tracked by our operatives," Agent Thompson said, "Since we are unsure how much information has been compromised, we had to confiscate and dispose of your mobile device and Dr. Banner's as well. It was for your own safety."

All attempts at being civil were abandoned.

"Wait, so you're telling me, you guys were tracing our prepaid, _untraceable_ cell phones, all this time?"

"That's correct, ma'am."

Alice felt a frustrated scream building up in her chest and she swallowed hard to hold it back. She was trapped in a really bad thriller movie. She was cut off. No way to contact Bruce or anyone else. She was completely at the mercy of Tommy the Robot and his shadowy government organization. She felt her stomach twist painfully. She took a few deep breaths and tried to calm down. There was nothing she could do about it. She just needed to relax. It would be over soon.

She sounded like Bruce and the sad part was, she still didn't believe it. This would never be over.

"Would you like to order lunch?" Agent Thompson asked, his voice still neutral, as if he couldn't see that she was cracking right in front of him.

She was starting to hate Tommy.

"What, am I confined to the hotel too?" she snapped.

This time she was sure she saw him raise an eyebrow.

"No ma'am," he said.

That surprised her.

"Really?"

"You're free to go wherever you'd like."

Alice didn't need to be told twice.

"Then I'm going out."

She stuffed her things back into her bag and slung it over her shoulder. She couldn't breath in here. Her hand was on the door knob before she realized something important. She stopped and then sighed, dropping her head to her chest dramatically.

"I don't have any money, Tommy," she grumbled reluctantly.

"It's Agent Thompson," he said behind her. She could have sworn there was just a hint of amusement in his voice.

She really wanted to turn around and deck him.

"Agent Thompson," she said with sickly sweetness, "I appear to be stranded in a foreign country without any currency. Would you be a lamb and loan me a few euros, please?"

Every word was like a stab to the ear drum. She had to fight not to flinch. She heard the adjoining door close behind her and she whirled around. The bastard was gone. She was teetering between spewing a stream of obscenities and crying, when there was a knock on the main door. She yanked it open and Agent Thompson was standing on the other side, looking imposing and completely emotionless. Alice resisted the urge to launch herself at his neck, claws extended.

"Where would you like to go, ma'am?"

They managed to find a little cafe a few blocks from the hotel that appeared to serve homemade, authentic German bratwurst. It was exactly Alice's kind of place, and even though neither of them spoke a word of German, both she and Agent Thompson managed to muddle through a passable lunch. Some local food in her stomach made her feel a little better about the dismal situation she was in, and she became determined to take advantage of it. She had grabbed a tourist map from the lobby of the hotel and as soon as they were through with lunch, Alice pulled it out and started dragging her bodyguard through the streets of Munich.

To Alice's surprise, it took only a little prodding to convince Agent Thompson to buy her a new phone exactly like her old one, but with a new number. Tommy programmed a few numbers into it, in case of emergency or if they were separated, but that didn't really matter to Alice. What mattered was that she had a phone now. She wasn't quite as cut off as she had been before. The little black plastic case in her pocket gave her hope.

Munich was a beautiful city, better than Alice had expected, but what really caught her eye was an advertisement for the Stuttgart Ballet that kept popping up all over town. They were performing Swan Lake the next night at the Stuttgart Theater. As they were heading back to the hotel, Alice casually mentioned it.

"It's only a train ride away," she said, preparing herself for a battle, but it turned out no convincing was needed.

"If you'd like to go, I'm sure I can secure some tickets." Agent Thompson said.

Alice went to bed that night feeling not quite as grim as she had that afternoon. She only wished Bruce was there.

The next day, they got up early and caught the train to Stuttgart. They visited the Stuttgart opera house and a few other places, before arriving in time for the ballet. Alice felt extremely under-dressed and slightly self conscious until the lights went down. Then nothing else mattered by the music and the dancers and the beauty that was playing before her on stage. She felt such a deep longing for Bruce to share this with her that a tear slipped down her cheek. She brushed it away before Agent Thompson could see.

When they left the theater it was dark, but not terribly late. To her surprise, Agent Thompson allowed her to wander the lamp lit streets for a while, admiring the beautiful architecture. The night was balmy, but not uncomfortable, certainly not compared to summer nights in Kolkata. She thought about the Takeris. She wondered if they were worried about her. She felt bad that she hadn't been able to tell them goodbye, especially since it was entirely likely that she would never see them again.

Suddenly there was a loud bang and Alice jumped. People were rushing out of one of the buildings up ahead, panicked and screaming.

"Ma'am, I think we should go."

Agent Thompson's voice remained level and calm, but she could sense an underlying anxiety in his tone. Alice didn't move. The crowd gathered in the square and a flash of light surrounded them. Four green figures stood at the corners of the square, glowing and flickering. She heard the siren of a police car as it careened up the street. The green figure at the head of the crowd leveled something that looked like a spear and suddenly there was an explosion and the car flipped and skidded down the street in a blaze. Alice covered her mouth to stifle a scream.

A sharp, commanding voice echoed through the streets.

"I said, _KNEEL_!"

The staff hit the stones of the square with a loud crack and a bright light flashed, enveloping the crowd trapped within the circle. Slowly, they began to drop to their knees.

"Ma'am," Agent Thompson had his hand on her arm and was pulling her away, "We need to go. Now."

Alice resisted him, not able to tear her eyes away. The man whose image wavered and glowed around the edge of the square sauntered through the people, his face lit with a crazed smile.

"Is this not simpler?" he said, his voice now dripping honey.

Alice shivered.

"Is this not your natural state? It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel."

Alice's skin crawled as his sickly sweet words echoed in the quiet of the square. Agent Thompson was now dragging her away, his hands on both her arms, pulling her back from the crowd. But before he could turn her away, she saw one lone figure slowly get to his feet. Alice felt her heart stop.

"Not to men like you."

The man's voice was raspy, but it carried over the deathly stillness of the cobblestone streets. The man in green grinned, showing his teeth.

"There are no men like me."

The old man stood a little straighter.

"There are _always_ men like you."

Alice recognized the glare of Death in the cold eyes of the would-be tyrant and her stomach dropped. He was going to kill that man. They couldn't let that happen. Someone needed to _do_ something! But no one moved.

Before she could think it through, Alice turned on Agent Thompson and stomped on the insole of his foot as hard as she could. She didn't weigh much, but she had the element of surprise and it was just enough to loosen his grip on her. She twisted away and started running. She could hear him behind her, yelling her name, his footsteps pounding on the pavement. But what she lacked in weight and strength she more than made up for in speed. She stretched her legs and before she knew it, she was through the wall of light and slid to a stop in front of the old man, her arms spread out, facing down the man that threatened him.

"Back off, leprechaun!" she snapped, trying to catch her breath so she wasn't gasping.

He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at her curiously. Then, to her surprise, a smile of recognition spread across his thin face.

"Well, well," he said, his voice oily and smooth, "Alice Ripley."

The sound of her name on his lips made her balk, but she gritted her teeth and held her ground, summoning every ounce of loathing and disgust she could muster.

"How do you know my name?"

His smile widened, showing teeth.

"Oh, I know far more than just your name."

He stalked toward her, sleek like a cat, his eyes glistening in hollow sockets.

"A girl playing Beauty to a beast in man's clothing."

 _Bruce_.

His face shimmered in the back of her mind, but she swallowed and pushed it away. The man was just short of arm's reach. He lifted his spear and Alice stood a little straighter, not letting her eyes leave his face. She felt the sharp edge of the scepter brush within a hair of touching her, then her parent's wedding rings dangled before her eyes, the silver chain glinting in the spear's blue glow. He examined them carefully.

"It's a pity really," he said, meeting her eyes, "You and I have so much in common, wearing the chains of our families around our necks."

He jerked back sharply and the chain snapped. Alice heard the rings strike the cobblestones and roll to a stop.

"Such a shame," he said, stepping back, his arm extended, "That I'm going to have to kill you now."

He leveled his spear and in that moment, when Alice realized she was going to die, when the relief of Death started to spread through her, Bruce's face flashed in front of her. She felt his kiss on her lips and heard his words.

_"Alice... please stay_ _…"_

And suddenly, she didn't want to die. She didn't _want_ to die! And he would never even know…

_I'm so sorry, Bruce_ _…_

She turned and shoved the old man to the ground just as the power exploded from the spear. But instead of disintegrating as she had imagined she would, she heard a loud, sharp clang. She looked up.

Captain America was standing over her. Actual, really real, _Captain America_. For a minute she just stared. She had seen pictures of him, heard of him in history classes. But actually looking at him, standing over her with his shield poised, in full red, white, and blue uniform, it was more than a little surreal.

He looked down at her and nodded.

"Ma'am."

He was so young. He looked exactly as he had in the poster on the wall of her junior history class. Alice felt glued to the ground. She couldn't remember how to move or speak.

The Captain turned and faced the man in green. With his attention diverted elsewhere, Alice was able to use her brain again. She looked around and saw the old man lying on the ground beside her, staring at her. She smiled at him.

There was a loud whirring and they both looked up. A strange looking fighter jet hung in the air over them and Agent Romanoff's voice blared into the night air.

"Loki, drop the weapon and stand down."

Alice barely had time to recognize the voice before the crowd started to surge in a panic. Alice scrambled to her feet and helped the old man up. Someone put a large hand on her shoulder and she whirled defensively. It was Agent Thompson, glaring daggers down at her.

"Can you yell at me later?" Alice said, cutting him off before he could start, "We need to get these people off the street!"

There was a loud clang and a crash. Alice turned to the people nearest her, a group of old women in formal dresses.

"Hi!" she said, smiling into their panicked faces, "Listen, we're gonna head for the sidewalk, try to get out of the way, why don't you come with us?"

They all nodded dumbly and she gathered them up in front of her, moving as quickly and calmly as she could toward the sidewalks. She could see Tommy herding another group of men and women in the same direction. Alice tried to gather as many people together as she could, moving them all in a calm and orderly fashion. Every clang and crash was another eruption of screaming and panic, but Alice managed to get most of her group to the side.

Then music came blasting out of nowhere and there was a crash, like something hitting the street, hard. Alice whipped her head around and once again was caught frozen, staring.

Iron Man had landed in the center of the square. He and Captain America had the man in green, Loki, cornered on the steps of the building. There was a pause, and then Loki transformed, shimmering until he seemed almost unassuming. It was over.

Alice instinctively reached for her parents' rings, but then she remembered they weren't there. She felt a swell of panic. They were still somewhere in the square. She could see Agent Thompson heading her way, but she turned away from him and slipped into the crowd, her mind racing. She tried to find the exact place she had been standing, but without the crowd around her it was hard to tell. Her eyes swept the cobblestones frantically, looking for any hint of gold glinting in the dim lights. But she didn't see anything. The rings were gone, lost somewhere in the stampeding confusion. Alice felt a knot of panic start to form in her gut. She was about to drop to her knees and start searching the cracks in the cobblestones, when a hand came down on her shoulder. She whirled around expecting Tommy and instead found herself facing Captain America. She relaxed a little bit. She still felt a little star-struck in his presence.

"Ma'am," he said, touching his fingers to his forehead in a salute, "That was a brave thing you did back there."

A smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

"You too. If it weren't for you, I'd be dead right now. And I… I wanted to thank you."

The words sounded strange in her mouth, because for the first time, she meant them. She had never sincerely thanked someone for saving her life before.

The Captain smiled warmly at her, "It was my pleasure, Miss…"

"Ripley," Alice said, offering her hand, "Alice Ripley."

"Steve Rogers," he said, shaking her hand firmly.

She grinned.

"I know."

Captain Rogers put a hand to his ear and held it for a moment.

"Yes ma'am, Agent Romanoff."

Natasha Romanoff's name made Alice blink. She remembered hearing the agent's distinctive voice in the jet, but in the panic she hadn't been able to properly process the information. But now she had some time to think…

"Are you working with SHIELD?"

The captain's back straightened at the name and his open friendly face closed up.

"What do you know about SHIELD?"

"Bruce Banner!" Alice said, her mind working in a flurry of barely connected thoughts, "Do you know him? Are you working with Dr. Bruce Banner?"

"Ma'am, I'm not sure if I'm authorized to…"

But Alice wasn't listening anymore. She was frantically digging in her bag, coming up with a pen and her program from the ballet. It would have to do. Frantically, she scribbled on a corner of the program and ripped it out, folding it in half.

"Will you give him this for me?" she asked, her voice sounding more desperate than she would have liked.

He hesitated.

"I'm not sure I…"

"Please," she said, thrusting the paper at him, "I swear, it's not dangerous. Please."

The captain considered for a moment, his eyes flitting from Alice's face to the note in her hand. Finally, he took the paper from her fingers and shoved it in his pocket. Alice sighed.

"Thank you," she said, "Thank you so much."

"Miss Ripley!"

Agent Thompson's voice carried clearly through the night air. And he sounded pissed. She knew that she couldn't escape him any longer. She made one last sweeping glance over the cobblestones of the square, hoping against hope to see the gleam of gold. But there was nothing. Then Tommy was at her side, dragging her off with a hand of steel. Her heart sank as she turned away.


	13. Chapter 13

Bruce had a headache. It was lurking behind his eyelids, a product of too much florescent lighting and too little sleep. And the threat of Loki lurking in the hold of the helicarrier did nothing to ease his mind. He studied the Asgardian from the bridge monitor, trying to mask his growing anxiety. He had every computer and piece of equipment at his disposal working at full capacity and he still wasn't sure it would be enough. If Director Fury could just get something out of Loki, anything that might help…

"It's an impressive cage," Loki said, "Not built, I think, for me."

"Built for something a lot stronger than you," Nick Fury shot back.

"Oh..." Loki smirked, looking straight into the camera, "I've heard."

Bruce kept his eyes fixed on the monitor, ignoring the looks he could feel lock onto him around the room. His head was pulsing.

"The mindless beast, makes play he's still a man."

Loki tilted his head, and for a moment Bruce was sure he was actually looking right at him.

"Of course, he has good reason to maintain the ruse."

Loki grinned, showing his teeth, then held out an upturned fist. Bruce felt the hairs on his arms stand on end. Slowly, Loki's hand opened and two glinting gold objects slowly floated into the air, twirling and catching the light.

Two gold rings…

"She's very pretty, isn't she, Doctor?" Loki said, "Your Alice…"

The screen went black, but it was too late. Every muscle in Bruce was tense with fury and loathing and fear. Alice… Loki knew about Alice, had seen her, had been close enough to rip her parents' rings from her neck! How the hell was that even possible?

Was… Was she…

Bruce felt his chest constrict, a fear too dark, too horrible to even contemplate fighting its way into his conscious mind. He gripped the back of the chair in front of him so hard the muscles in his arms ached. He closed his eyes and forced deep breaths of air in through his nose. He couldn't lose it. Not here. Not now. Not even if she…

He took one more breath, and opened his eyes. Natasha met his gaze with calm composure, but he could see the fear in her eyes, could smell it on her.

"Where is she?" he growled.

Natasha hesitated.

"Miss Ripley was in Stuttgard," she said finally, her voice steady, "We didn't know. She just happened to be there at the wrong time."

This couldn't be happening. His heart was threatening to pound its way out of his chest and with every beat of his pulse a dull thud hit the backs of his eyes. God, this damn headache…

"You said you would keep her safe!" he said, trying to keep his voice level and failing miserably.

"She is safe."

Captain Steve Rogers reached into his pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper.

"She asked me to give you this."

Bruce stared at the paper for a moment before he finally took it.

"You saw her?" he asked. He trusted Captain Roger's word a bit more than he did Agent Romanoff's at the moment. The man might be military, but at least he came from a time when honesty was a valued trait.

"Yes, I did," Steve said, "She was very brave. She saved a man's life."

Bruce fought the urge to scoff. Maybe she'd saved a man's life, but he doubted very much it was out of bravery, not after what she'd told him at Holi. He should be with her, protecting her, not just from aliens and gods, but from herself. Instead he paced a laboratory on a flying metal boat full of skittish government flunkies and just prayed that nothing went wrong.

He turned the folded paper over and over in his hands before he finally opened it. A series of numbers was scribbled hurriedly in the corner. A phone number. And written underneath, the script so rushed that it was barely legible:

"Don't worry, I'm okay. Be careful."

He read the words three times. Then he closed his eyes and took a deep shuddering breath. She was okay. The words were small comfort, but seeing them written in her hand eased a weight off his chest and he felt like he could breathe again.

"Are we passing love notes now?"

Tony Stark sauntered onto the bridge, a cocky smirk plastered on his face. Bruce could feel color rising to his cheeks, but he kept his face blank as he folded the piece of paper and slid it into his pocket. Tony jabbed a finger in Bruce's direction.

"Now, now Dr. Banner, don't you know the rules? If you're caught passing notes you have to share with the class!"

Despite the blush in his cheeks, Bruce felt his lips twitch up. He quickly wiped it away. He didn't want to encourage the snarky billionaire.

"Are we good, Dr. Banner?" Natasha asked.

The stiffness in her posture and the way her eyes followed him made her look like a cat crouched to pounce. She probably had her gun in her hand under the table. Bruce shifted his glasses in his hands nervously. Everyone here was so damn trigger happy.

"Yeah, we're good."

His head was throbbing again. He resisted the urge to rub the bridge of his nose.

"Clearly Loki is trying to drag things out, keep us from discovering his real purpose here," Captain Rogers said, "Thor, what's his play?"

With the attention of the room directed elsewhere, Bruce felt a knot in his neck relax. His head cleared a little and he forced himself back to the matter at hand. Thor spoke of alien armies and a fight for power, but none of that mattered to Bruce. He slipped a hand in his pocket and ran his fingers over the edge of the torn paper. All he cared about was getting off this damn ship.

"I think it's about the mechanics," he said.

Everyone turned to look at him again. He didn't like the attention, but it was the only way to get the conversation back on track. His free hand fidgeted with his glasses and he tried to stay focused.

"Iridium, what's the iridium for?"

"It's a stabilizing agent, to keep the new portal from collapsing on itself like it did at SHIELD," Tony said.

He wasn't looking at Bruce, probably the only person in the room that wasn't. He seemed far more interested in the panels of controls used to navigate the helicarrier.

"It also means the portal can open as wide and stay open as long as Loki wants. Is no one gonna point out the guy playing Galaga over there?"

Everyone glanced over at the poor sap, who looked up with a blank look of shock and horror on his face.

"Aren't we in the middle of crisis? He's gonna beat the international high score he keeps playing with that kind of dedication," Tony said, turning away from the guy with little more than a wave of his hand. Bruce smiled then, but only because the overconfident ass couldn't see him.

Tony turned back to the control and put a hand over one eye.

"How does Fury even see these?"

"He turns."

One of the more senior agents, a serious young woman by the name of Maria Hill, was glaring at Tony across the room, her arms crossed, appearing thoroughly unimpressed with Tony's bullshit. Maybe it was just the note in his pocket, but Bruce was reminded of Alice for the briefest of moments.

"That sounds exhausting," Tony said, unphased.

He started pushing buttons and playing with the controls.

"The rest of the raw materials Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. The only major component he needs is a power source of high energy density. Something to kick start the cube."

He turned with a flourish and looked like he was waiting for everyone to be impressed. No one was, but Bruce's mind was starting to turn. A power source… What could generate that kind of energy? Where could you find something like that? His mind began working through the possibilities, the chatter around him just background noise. Almost involuntarily, he started voicing his thoughts aloud.

"He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier…"

"...unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect."  
Bruce brought his focus back to the present. Tony's eyes were bright with the challenge to his intellect, clearly passing it back to Bruce. Bruce accepted.  
"Well if he could do that he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet."  
Tony threw up his hands as if in triumph.  
"Finally! Someone who speaks English!"  
"Is that what just happened?" Steve muttered, clearly confused.  
Tony ignored the Captain and extended his hand to Bruce. Bruce took it with a hint of a smile. He had to admit, the guy was smart, even if he was an overconfident asshole.  
"Dr. Banner, I just want to say that your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled."  
Bruce was surprised that Tony had even heard of that, it had been years since he'd published that research. He was about to reply when Tony added.  
"...and I'm a _huge_ fan of the way you lose control and turn into a huge green rage monster."  
The billionaire's eyes were sparkling and Bruce couldn't tell if he was joking, or if he really was that naive. He wasn't sure how to respond. It wasn't a joke, but Tony made the whole thing seem so… simple, as simple as mentioning his merits as a scientist.  
"Thanks," he said, at a loss for anything else to say. He felt his headache coming back.

"Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube," Director Fury's voice punctuated the tension in the air as he walked onto the bridge, "I was hoping you might join him."

Bruce had to curb a fit of anxiety. He wasn't sure how he felt about having this careless firecracker of a man sharing a lab with him. Tony Stark was notoriously reckless and clearly lacking a healthy dose of respect for Bruce's particular… condition. On the other hand, he was also brilliant, one of the most forward thinking men of his generation, possibly of _any_ generation.

"Also, Doctor Banner, I thought you might like these."

The director held out a gloved hand to Bruce. Alice's rings were in his palm. Bruce felt like the air had been knocked out of him. He swallowed, then took the two rings from Director Fury, turning them over in his hand, watching them catch the light.

"Thought you might like to hold on to them until you could return them to their rightful owner."

Bruce looked up and saw in the director's eyes that he wasn't just giving him these rings on a whim. It was a promise. A promise that Alice was safe, that SHIELD would see that she remained so, and that Bruce would be able to see it for himself when this was over. He wasn't sure that he trusted Nick Fury's unspoken word anymore than anyone else's on this boat, but he didn't have much of a choice. He slipped the rings into his pocket and his fingers brushed the ragged edges of Alice's note. He just wanted to get out of here, as quickly as possible. And he could use all the help he could get.

So when Tony grinned at him and asked, "Shall we play, Doctor?", Bruce managed to muster a smile.

"Yeah, let's play some."

Even with Tony's help, Bruce could feel the anxiety building in his chest. His head still pounded steadily and he could feel the Other Guy shifting uneasily under the surface of his skin. The low levels of gamma radiation seeping from Loki's spear probably weren't helping the situation, but studying the spear yielded valuable information about the signature of the Tesseract, helping to narrow down the cube's location. The sooner he could find that damn blue box, the sooner he could get the hell off this boat. The sooner he could find Alice, see her with his own eyes and know for sure that she was okay.

Bruce knew that Tony could sense his tension. He just seemed determined to ignore it. In fact, he appeared to be trying to push Bruce to his limit, poking and prodding and dragging him into arguments and confrontations that Bruce didn't want anything to do with. He didn't want to crack secret computer codes or reveal dark government secrets. He just wanted to find Alice and get as far away from this mess as possible, and he tried to make that clear. Once Captain Rogers stormed out of the lab, Bruce thought he might finally be able to get some work done.

"That's the guy my dad never shut up about?" Tony said, "Wonder if they shouldn't have kept him on ice."

Bruce knew that Tony was frustrated, but he liked Captain Rogers and so felt inclined to put forth at least a half-assed attempt to defend him.

"The guy's not wrong about Loki. He does have the jump on us."

He could still hear Loki's words in his head.

" _She is pretty isn't she, Dr. Banner_ _… Your Alice…"_

Just the thought made his blood boil and he gritted his teeth, trying to concentrate on his work past the unending throb in his head. He really needed to get some sleep…

"What he's got is an ACME dynamite kit," Tony said, punching a few numbers into an equation and sliding the result over to Bruce's screen, "It's gonna blow up in his face and I'm gonna be there when it does."

"And I'll read all about it," Bruce said, working with the equation and sending it flying back across the room.

He could feel Tony's eyes on him, but he ignored it. His hand slipped into his pocket, folding Alice's note between his fingers. He and Alice would be far, far away by then, he would make sure of it.

"Uh huh…" Tony said, sounding unconvinced, "Or you'll be suiting up like the rest of us."

Bruce scoffed at the idea of 'suiting up'.

"No, see, I don't get a suit of armor," he said, bitterly, "I'm exposed, like a nerve. It's a nightmare."

He could feel the raw emotion roiling through him, could feel the beast straining against him, feeling out his weaknesses. He tried to focus on the screen in front of him, but Tony had moved to the other side of the glass and his eyes were piercing through him.

"You know, I've got a cluster of shrapnel, trying every second to crawl its way into my heart."

He tapped the arc reactor glowing blue under his t-shirt.

"This stops it. This little circle of light. It's part of me now, not just armor. It's a…" Tony paused, "A terrible privilege."

"But you can control it," Bruce said.

"Because I learned how."

Bruce shook his head. Tony thought he understood, but he didn't really. What he had was not a choice, it wasn't a privilege, it wasn't something he could use the way Tony wanted him to. He was reminded of that night by the Holi fire with Alice, how disappointed she had looked for a moment as he'd tried to wrap his mind around what she'd told him, about how she felt about her life. Was this how it had felt for her, this feeling of frustrated misunderstanding?

"It's different," Bruce said finally, turning back to his work.

Thinking of Alice had renewed his focus and his resolve. He didn't care what Tony thought. He just wanted out of this place. He just wanted to be with Alice, to make sure she was safe.

"Hey!"

Tony swiped his hand over the screen, clearing away all of Bruce's work and leaving him staring into Tony's irritated face.

"I've read all about your accident," Tony said, "That much gamma radiation should have killed you."

This was starting to sound like a slightly familiar conversation, one he'd had over a year ago, but he could still hear in the back of his mind.

" _What if_ _… that… Other Guy… What if he hadn't saved your ass last night?"_

He could still hear the indignation in Alice's voice, see the fire in her eyes. It made the corners of his mouth twitch up.

"What are you laughing at, Big Guy?"

Tony's voice brought Bruce back to the present and he dropped his eyes to his hands, fidgeting nervously with a pen.

"Nothing," he said, "Nothing, you just reminded me of someone."

"Oh, you mean the girlfriend that you're exchanging love letters with?" Tony said, a smirk on his face, "What was her name? Ellen?"

"Alice," Bruce said, before he could think better of it.

"Well, she sounds like a smart girl if she's agreeing with me, which I'm sure she would," Tony said, pulling their research back up onto the screen in front of them.

"What, that the Hulk…"

The name was like a bad taste in Bruce's mouth and he rephrased.

"The Other Guy… saved my life?" He rolled his eyes, "Yeah, that's a nice sentiment, but why? Saved it for what?"

Tony stopped and stared at him, his signature smirk still tugging at the corners of his lips.

"I think Alice might have a few things to say about that."

Bruce stared at Tony for a minute, the realization of what he was saying hitting him hard. If the Hulk hadn't saved his life… what might have happened to Alice? What might still happen to Alice if he didn't stop this? Aliens and gods and hostile planetary takeover were all grand ideas that until now Bruce hadn't considered part of his problem. But if he failed to find the Tesseract, if they didn't stop Loki… He wasn't sure that was something they could run from.

He reached into his pocket and felt the ragged edges of the note.

" _Don't worry, I'm okay. Be careful."_

The words of the note were already emblazoned in his memory along with the series of numbers that were his only link to her. Be careful. It was something that he had been doing for so many years, tiptoeing through his life, trying to be careful, trying to be safe. But holding that note, he began to wonder how far he was willing to go to keep Alice safe. With so much at stake, could he still afford to be careful?


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sorry about skipping the update last week guys, I've had a really busy and weird couple of weeks. I'm also sorry that this chapter is so short :( To make up for it, I will try to get the next (and final) chapter out earlier. I hope you enjoy!

After the Stuttgart incident, Alice was not surprised when she was relocated. She was also not surprised that her outing privileges had been revoked indefinitely. She _was_ surprised that she was still allowed her own room (though Agent Thompson was still only an adjoining door away). And SHIELD still seemed determined to spare no expense for her comfort. The suite she was confined to was huge and decadent, and she felt completely out of place among its thick crimson curtains and gold-fringed pillows. Tommy told her they were in Switzerland, but he wouldn't say where exactly, probably trying to discourage any urge on her part to explore the surroundings.

It didn't matter. Alice was too worried about Bruce to care much about Switzerland. The man in Stuttgart had rattled her more than she cared to admit. His name was Loki, but Agent Thompson wasn't willing to reveal anything else about him. She didn't really need to know much else to know that he was dangerous. She had seen it in his eyes, could still hear it in his voice in her dreams.

" _Alice Ripley_ _… A girl playing Beauty to a beast in man's clothing… You and I have so much in common, wearing the chains of our families around our necks…"_

She would wake up in sweats, her hand clutched to her bare neck. The weight of her parents' rings was noticeably absent. It made her anxious. She had not gone a day without them since they'd died and the fact that they were missing felt like a bad omen. It made her nervous for Bruce. Was he in the same place as that tyrant? What was he doing? Had he even gotten her message? As each day crawled past, Alice wavered between faith and doubt. Surely if he had gotten her note she would have heard from him by now, but her new phone remained still and silent in her pocket. Then again, he was probably surrounded by SHIELD agents, maybe it wasn't possible for him to call. Maybe they had confiscated the note from Captain Rogers and Bruce had never received it to begin with. Or maybe something else had happened…

Alice didn't want to think about that. She couldn't. If she did she might have a panic attack and she needed to stay calm. She did no one any good by falling apart. So she sat in her room and pretended to watch subtitled French TV, trying not to check her phone every other minute. She just wished Bruce would call, that anyone would call, that _someone_ would tell her _something_. The uncertainty was driving her to the edge of sanity.

By the third day, she felt like her mind had turned to mush. She was slumped on the king sized bed, staring mindlessly at images flickering on the screen, when a buzz vibrated against her thigh. She jerked upright. The buzz sounded again and she was on her feet, scrambling in her pocket. She jerked the phone out and didn't even bother to look at the display before she flipped it open.

"Hello?" she hissed into the phone, tiptoeing into the bathroom and shutting the door behind her, leaving the TV blaring in the other room, "Bruce? Is that you?"

There was a minute of silence on the other end. Alice held her breath. Then she heard a long sigh.

"Alice…"

A knot of worry in her chest relaxed. The voice was tired and bleak, but it was undeniably Bruce's voice.

"Bruce, thank god," she said, sinking down onto the edge of the tub, "Where are you, are you okay?"

There was another pause. Alice waited, but her chest started to tighten again as the seconds of silence stretched on.

"Bruce?"

"Alice, I…"

His voice broke. Alice's heart was pounding.

"Alice, there was a… an attack."

Her chest constricted painfully.

"Bruce, are you okay?" she asked again, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.

He chuckled, but it was bitter.

"Yeah, I'm _peachy_."

In the relief that followed, Alice could finally think and she was able guess why Bruce sounded so guilt-stricken and tired.

"He showed up, didn't he? The Other Guy."

Another pause and then Bruce's voice was so soft, so stricken, that it made Alice's heart ache.

"I couldn't stop it."

"I know," Alice said, her voice soothing, "I know you couldn't. Bruce, if you were attacked there was nothing you could do…"

"I should have listened to you."

His voice was sharp.

"I should have listened when you told me to run," he said, "Even doing everything I could, I couldn't keep you safe."

Alice reeled from the change in direction. When had the conversation become about her? Keep her safe? She hadn't even been… Then she realized he wasn't talking about the Other Guy.

"Are you talking about Stuttgart?" Alice said, feeling a flare of fiery indignation, "Bruce, that had nothing to do with you."

"It had _everything_ to do with me!" Bruce said, his voice rising, "You wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for me!"

"I chose to be there!" Alice said, raising her voice to match his, "Everything I did, that was my call and don't you dare try to take that from me! Because for the first time in my life, I didn't want to die!"

There was silence on the other end. Alice took a deep breath and lowered her voice.

"I thought I was going to die, Bruce. It was staring at me, right in the face, and I… I thought of you. And I wanted to live."

Still silence. The only reason she even knew he was still on the line was because she could hear background noise.

"Bruce," she murmured, "Tell me what's going on."

He sighed.

"It's big, Alice. Bigger than you, than me, bigger than… than Him."

Alice closed her eyes. Bigger than the Other Guy? She could still see him in her mind, as plain as if she'd seen him yesterday. What could be bigger than that?

"The reason I called…" he went on, "I needed to tell you… I need you to know…"

"I know," Alice said and she did. She didn't need him to say it, didn't _want_ him to say it, not like this, "I know, me too. Bruce, just be careful, okay?"

Silence. There was a loud beep in the receiver.

"I gotta go."

"Bruce, promise me you'll be careful!" Alice said, high-pitched desperation in her voice.

There was a long pause.

"I can't," Bruce whispered.

Then the line went dead.

* * *

Bruce hung up the receiver and stepped out of the phone booth. He looked up at the sky. It was clear blue, only a scattering of clouds. It would have been a beautiful day... if it weren't for the gaping black hole torn out just above the New York City skyline. He couldn't hear anything from this distance, but he knew that the others were already there, fighting desperately to hold the city against the hordes of… _things_ pouring through the rift. No one knew where he was. They weren't expecting his help. He could turn his back and walk away and no one would be the wiser.

" _I thought of you_ _… and I wanted to live."_

Alice wanted to live. She had spent all of her adult life waiting for death, and now she wanted to live. It was miracle in the midst of the apocalypse, a ray of light in the darkness. And now, Bruce knew what he was willing to do to keep Alice safe. Anything. Alice wanted to live. Bruce would do everything in his power to make sure she was able to do so. He was done being careful.

He got onto the scooter that he had managed to hotwire, and headed into the city.

* * *

Back in Switzerland, Alice sat on the edge of the tub and stared at her phone screen for a long time, riddled with guilt and anxiety. Had she done enough? Had she told him what he needed to hear? She didn't know what he was facing, she recognized that it was far beyond her comprehension, but she didn't care. All she wanted was for Bruce to come back, safe. Nothing else mattered. And she was afraid that it might not be possible.

When she finally came out of the bathroom, Agent Thompson was sitting on the edge of her bed staring at the TV. He looked up when she came in, then gestured at the screen.

"You should see this," he said, in that calm robotic voice.

She shuffled over and sank down onto the bed next to him. The image was of the New York City skyline. A reporter was gibbering on faster than the captions could keep up, but Alice didn't need commentary to see what was going on. There was a black hole ripped out of the sky and creatures were pouring through it. It looked like Captain America and Iron Man, along with a couple others that she didn't recognize, were trying to hold the city against the things that were flying out of the hole in the sky. But when a creature that looked like a cross between a turtle, a dragon, and a war machine came slithering out of the hole, Alice felt her heart sink. It was massive and impenetrable, mowing through office buildings like they were blades of grass. And she remembered what Bruce had said.

" _Bigger than you, than me_ _… bigger than Him…"_

Agent Thompson pointed at the screen.

"There's your boy."

Alice jerked upright and almost fell off the edge of the bed. A camera caught a blurry image, just barely making out a knot of people facing down the creature. And as she watched, her heart in her throat, a huge green shape burst from the group and rushed the beast, slamming a fist into the creature's head and crushing it like an aluminum soda can. She jumped and threw a fist in the air.

"Yes!" she yelped, before she realized what she was doing and sat down.

The rest of the battle was a blur, mostly because the footage was terrible, but also because Alice spent most of her time looking for glimpses of the Hulk in the madness, riding a roller coaster of building terror when he disappeared and rushing relief with every glimpse she caught. And then it was over. The hole snapped shut and the coverage started playing again, over and over with more frantic commentary that Alice wasn't listening to. She had seen him in the last moments, snatching a tiny figure from the air and crashing to the ground, before the coverage had ended. But she knew that he was alright. Bruce was alive. He was safe. And he had saved the world. It was finally over. She sat back and smiled.

"I knew it wasn't too big," she said, turning to Agent Thompson, "Nothing's too big for him."


	15. Chapter 15

Two days later, Bruce found himself sliding into the passenger seat of Tony Stark's convertible. The Tesseract and Loki were both safely back in Asgard, and Bruce had been released from SHIELD's custody. He sank back into the leather seat and smiled as Tony pulled away from the curb.

"So, where to?" Tony asked, "I don't know about you, but I could use a vacation. I hear Bora Bora is nice this time of year."

"Sounds great," Bruce said, but he was barely listening. He had his phone in his hand, about to dial.

"Who're you calling?"

"Alice."

Before he could hit the call button, Tony snatched the phone out of his hand and chucked it out the window.

"Damn it, Tony, that was brand new…"

Tony ignored him.

"JARVIS?"

The AI answered through the car's speakers.

" _Sir?"_

"Access the SHIELD database and locate Bruce's girlfriend, would you?"

"She's not my…"

"Have her shipped to Stark Tower."

" _Of course, sir."_

Bruce stared at Tony for a minute, torn between being annoyed and impressed. Tony grinned.

"What? You didn't really think I'd just pull up all my stakes in the SHIELD mainframe, did you? Oh, I almost forgot," He reached into his pocket, "Found these in the wreckage you left behind on the helicarrier. Figured you might want to have them back."

He dropped two gold rings into Bruce's outstretched hand. Bruce stared at them, shocked. He'd been sure they were gone when he'd lost himself on the helicarrier. For Tony to have them… There was no way he'd found them by chance. Bruce closed his fingers, pressing the cool metal into his palm.

"So, about Bora Bora…" Tony said.

* * *

Three days after the Battle of New York, Agent Thompson dropped Alice off on the sidewalk in front of Stark Tower. Or rather what was left of Stark Tower. The building had taken a brutal beating. Most of the bottom floors looked alright on the outside, but Alice knew the top few floors had been completely destroyed. She didn't know why SHIELD would send her here. Tommy had only said that his orders were to deliver her safely. She was sure that the poor guy was just glad to be rid of her. She hadn't exactly made his job easy.

As Tommy drove away, Alice stared up at what remained of the building. She didn't want to be here. She wanted to see Bruce. She hadn't heard from him at all since the battle, and despite Tommy's insistence that he was fine, it made her anxious that she hadn't gotten any word from him herself. Why hadn't he called her?

She straightened her shoulders to push away the remnants of her uneasiness, and then picked her way through the glass doors of the tower. A buzzer sounded and a red light blinked, then a laser projection of a screen appeared in the air in front of her.

SCANNING… it said in blue letters, and then blinked green, APPROVED.

A robotic voice, male with a touch of British accent, echoed through the empty lobby.

_"Welcome to Stark Tower, Miss Ripley. You are expected on the 37th floor. If you'll please enter the far right elevator."_

A metal door in the far wall slid open. Alice hesitated, glancing around at the rubble that littered the lobby floor.

"An elevator?" she muttered, "Really?"

 _"I can assure you, it is perfectly safe,"_ the robot voice said, _"All safety checks have been performed and the systems are operating at optimal levels. However, if you would like to climb the three hundred and eighty-three stairs_ _…"_

"No!" Alice said, striding across the floor and sliding into the open elevator, "No, that's okay, I'm fine."

_"Very good, Miss."_

The door slid closed and she felt a little jolt as the elevator started moving, but the ride up was smooth. More quickly than she'd expected, the doors slid open and she stepped into a bright white hallway. On the other side of the hall was a glass wall, and through the glass she could see what looked like a lab, with the most sophisticated equipment and computers that she'd ever seen. A man in a white lab coat had his back to her, inputting figures onto one of the screens that were suspended in the air. She took another step forward and the glass wall slid apart in front of her. The man turned at the sound…

Bruce.

Their eyes met and a wide smile spread across his face. Alice felt a hurricane of emotions whirl through her. Then she was running and she threw her arms around his neck and held on as tight as she could, burying her face in his shoulder, just praying that she wouldn't cry. She had never been so happy to see another human being in her entire life.

Once the intense wave of joy and relief passed she took a step back, grabbed hold of his pretty white lab coat, and started shaking him as hard as she could.

"God damn it, Bruce Banner, what the hell?!" she screamed, her voice cracking. Oh god, she was going to cry, "Three days and you couldn't even call?!"

Bruce's face had transformed from radiantly happy to terrified in less than a second.

"Alice, I…"

"Don't you 'Alice' me!" she said, "I've been waiting three damn days, having to take _SHIELD's_ word that you were okay, because you couldn't be bothered to pick up the damn phone! Where the hell have you been?"

Someone cleared their throat loudly behind them and Alice whirled toward the intruder.

" _What_?" she snapped.

The man standing in the doorway quirked an eyebrow.

"Easy, banshee lady, you're dealing with some pretty volatile type stuff there, you know."

Alice looked back at Bruce. He certainly looked a bit rattled, but Alice was having trouble caring. She had been on edge for three days, he could sweat it for a few minutes. He pushed his glasses on top of his head and straightened his coat, his hands fidgeting nervously. Alice started to feel a little guilty, but she would be damned if she was going to admit it. She whirled back on the man leaning in the doorway, but he raised a hand to stop her.

"Before you go back to wailing on our favorite anger radiation expert, let me just say that this was all my idea."

Alice narrowed her eyes.

"Who the hell are you?"

He looked genuinely surprised and a little disappointed.

"You don't recognize me?"

He turned to model his profile for her. She stared for a minute. He looked slightly familiar, but she couldn't place him.

"You might know me better in my favorite suit?" He wiggled his eyebrows, "It's red and gold and shiny…"

That was when it clicked.

"You're Tony Stark," she said, crossing her arms and glaring at him, "Of course."

She'd heard of Tony Stark, billionaire five-year-old turned superhero. She wasn't as impressed as she was sure he thought she should be.

He placed his hands on his chest and bowed low, "At your service, my lady. Please, cease your torturing of yon simple scientist, who knew not what fury he hadst brought upon himself."

"You didn't tell her?" Bruce said, a hint of frustration in his voice, though he didn't really sound surprised, "You said you had it taken care of."

"I did!" Tony said, straightening up and shoving his hands in his pockets, "I thought it would be a nice surprise. Clearly, I was mistaken."

Alice's glare at him deepened. He shrugged.

"It's rare, but it happens."

She turned her glare back to Bruce, who was now fiddling with his glasses in his hand, looking sheepish.

"I'm sorry, Alice," he said, "But I'd rather talk to you in person than on the phone. I thought you knew where I was."

She sighed and looked from Bruce to Tony and back. She was finding it very difficult to stay angry at Bruce, considering how overwhelmingly happy she was to see him, alive and well. Bruce put a hand in his pants' pocket, fishing for something.

"I think I have something that might help."

He held out his hand to her. Even without seeing the engravings inside, Alice knew that there, nestled in his palm, were her parents' wedding rings. Everything else disappeared from her mind. She closed her fingers around the rings and pressed her fist to her lips, closing her eyes and letting out a deep sigh of relief. She had no idea how Bruce had come to have them. She would ask him later. Right now, she didn't care. She'd been sure they were gone, lost to her forever, and now here they were, safe in her own hand.

But as she felt the metal pressing into her skin, she realized that in the last three days, between worrying about Bruce and herself and the world coming to an end, she hadn't missed them. She opened her palm and stared at the two rings that she had carried with her for so many years, that had anchored her to her past and her family, and had defined who she was and what she believed. And they just sat in her hand, just two pieces of metal, memories still clinging to them, but no longer holding power over her. Loki's words came floating back to her.

" _You and I have so much in common_ _… wearing the chains of our families around our necks…"_

But she wasn't wearing that chain anymore. She didn't need to.

She clutched her fingers around the rings and looked up at Bruce. He was standing back warily, his eyes flicking over her face, wondering if she was still angry with him. Alice smiled. She couldn't even remember why she had been angry anymore. He was safe. She was safe. And they had a lifetime to figure out the rest.

Her smile immediately relaxed Bruce's face and he smiled back, relieved. She reached out and took his hand.

"Fine. I guess I'll let you off the hook this time. But you know, you're out of prized possessions to magically return to me, so it better not happen again."

"No," Bruce chuckled, "No, never again."

He stepped up and took her shoulders in his hands.

"If I can help it, I'm never letting you out of my sight."

Alice's heart jumped in her chest.

"I think I'd like that," she said.

Then he leaned down, and kissed her.

Behind them, Alice heard Tony say, "Finally! _Now_ can we go to Bora Bora?"

**The End** **… for now…**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Oh Tony, always got to have the last word ;) So, I know you guys are probably going to be LIVID at me for ending the story here, but I just feel like the characters have reached a good point in their development and it just felt… I don't know, right :) But never fear! I won't be leaving Alice and Bruce for long if I can help it. I would love to write some one-shots and short stories for the two of them as the MCU timeline develops leading up to Avengers 2. I'm going to do my best to come up with a few things, so stay tuned! But for now, I hope you all enjoyed my story and feel free to give me any feedback you'd like, I'm always looking to improve! Thanks!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Worth Living For (The Playlist)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10918317) by [fogisbeautiful](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fogisbeautiful/pseuds/fogisbeautiful)




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